


there is a fountain

by meltingheart



Category: SHINee
Genre: Erotic blood drinking, Gray Morality, Inspired by Interview With the Vampire, M/M, Mentions of Death, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-12-27 07:28:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meltingheart/pseuds/meltingheart
Summary: reach out your hand if your cup be emptyif your cup is full may it be againlet it be known there is a fountainthat was not made by the hands of men





	there is a fountain

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fill for the A Very SHINee Halloween fanfiction fest. It's based on _An Interview with a Vampire_, and as an idea that's floated in my head for almost a year, I had a great amount of fun bringing it to life for this fest - incorporating all the ideas and moments I had imagined for a while. I'm so happy to have gotten to contribute to Summer of SHINee's second iteration in such a nice way, both by writing this and moderating the fest together with my fellow mods. I hope you can enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it! 
> 
> Thank you as always to Tony and Aqua for cheering me on always, and faithfully rereading it from the beginning even through your busy schedules. Thank you also to all my friends for supporting me and listening to me ramble about writing this. I could not have done this without your support!! 
> 
> _Minor warning_ \- this fic does have a few mentions of dead bodies. Death as it is conceptualized for a vampire's life is mostly skirted around in favor of larger themes. It's also got blood. But, overall, the story's more about life, change, and growth.

The tunnel he walked through was dark, vacant; an oddity for the inner-city even at this late hour, but Minho appreciated the silence. It was old, sloped, made of cobblestones worn rough over time by traffic and the air of the nearby bay, and Minho wondered how it had avoided the rapid bounds of urbanization that seemed to grip the city this decade. He did not bother turning his head to listen as a sharp clatter suddenly came from behind him, because like another sense, he knew: there was a presence following him. A heat signature pressing up against his back, far away though it still might be. Footsteps echoed just slightly behind his own - near silent, too quiet to be made by a mortal. 

Who could imagine that just as soon as he stopped looking for immortals, one would walk right up to him? Minho felt his blood rush in excitement, and almost had to bite back a smile at the irony of it all as he turned, coattails fluttering behind him slightly. 

Before him, a few meters away, stood just that - a smile. It was one that seemed almost too wide, toeing the edge between warm and decidedly unsettling. The owner’s eyes were near closed with the force of it, but Minho didn’t need to see the cold, light blue of vampirism in his gaze to catch the glint of fangs. 

Minho lifted his right hand in a wave, unsure what else to do. 

The vampire lifted his left, otherwise remaining motionless. 

Minho squinted, taking a few steps forward. The vampire took steps towards him in turn, long peacoat swishing with the motion. That smile was still on his face. 

What was he supposed to do? Surely this vampire was playing some kind of a joke on him. Walking right up to the other’s face, Minho started, “Hey, are y--” but stopped when the vampire echoed him with a  _ “Hey, are y--”  _ of his own. This close up, he could see the mirth shining in the eyes of the other. 

Raising a hand once more, Minho made to - he didn’t even know what, but do  _ something.  _ Something to get this vampire to stop his mirror act. He thought it was more of a cruel humor than anything, since vampires couldn’t even see themselves in mirrors. 

The vampire raised his own hand immediately, and started doing an invisible box act. Minho shoved his hand forwards, aiming to push the other - he’d had enough of the games. The vampire tittered a little, springing backwards and doing a walk into the air outside the tunnel’s edge, miming as if he was climbing up the stairs. Minho found himself begrudgingly impressed: he was not stopping his act for a moment. 

“Jinki!” A gentle voice called from behind him. Minho whipped around at the sound, just barely catching the way the vampire’s -  _ Jinki?  _ \- smile fell and his ice-blue eyes widened slightly. 

Before him, at the end of the tunnel he’d entered through, now some meters away, in the same situation as he had found himself earlier, was yet another vampire, backlit by the streetlight beyond. How many of them  _ were  _ there out here? How had he never discovered any before now? 

The new arrival seemed somewhat less friendly, though Minho didn’t feel all that scared - he had more than a few centimeters over him, and after the centuries he’d lived through, he could handle near anything. Two on one might be a little too much, though. Glancing over his shoulder, he found that luckily, Jinki had vanished. So be it. Minho stalked carefully up to the other vampire, stopping a safe, comfortable distance away. It was close enough to where he could confirm the other’s heartbeat, running sluggishly and below the tenacity of a human’s--vampire for sure. 

“Who are you?” He figured was the best place to start. 

“You should’ve become aware by now,” the new arrival smiled up at him, one corner of his mouth tilting higher than the other, like he was telling a joke only he had heard before. “The same as you.”

Minho opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the other vampire, who continued, “I must apologize for my partner. But this isn’t necessarily the right place to talk at length.” At that he held out a small business card, poking it at Minho when he made no move to accept it. 

Frowning warily, Minho finally took it. He glanced down. The paper was thick, dark gray, embossed with shimmering blue lettering. 

_ Blue Nights 24-Hour Café _

_ Owner-Operator Kim Jonghyun _

_ Third Door on the Left, 5th Street _

Flicking his eyes back up, he found himself alone once more. 

* * *

Third door on the left, third door on the left… Minho carefully stepped down the side street the next night, swinging his head back and forth. It did say left, after all, but not from which direction - and almost all the doors were unmarked, unlit and covered by stray overgrowth of local weeds, only leading to further confusion.

Soon he found himself in front of a simple wooden door lit by strung greenish mood lights, the blue crescent moon painted onto it faded and splintering away with time. The cafe was named Blue Nights, and a blue moon... Figuring this must be it, Minho pushed the door open. 

The café was warm and inviting, yet only a few customers lounged here and there, sipping their drinks under candlelight. The second vampire he’d met a few nights prior, Jonghyun, barely glanced up when he heard the tinkling of the door’s bell, though his inconspicuous presence instantly drew Minho’s attention. He continued strumming at his bass guitar, seated casually on a small raised platform in the corner, tuning it slightly as he went along. 

_ Owner-operator? But he’s sitting there playing like he’s looking for some spare change,  _ Minho mused, taking a seat at the counter and facing the stage Jonghyun was on. 

Behind him, the barista asked what he’d like, but Minho tuned her out, glancing around the cozy café to gain his bearings better. Distracted as he’d been by the thrum of energy pouring out from Jonghyun, he noticed one thing in particular as he scanned the patronage: Jinki was nowhere to be seen. 

Jonghyun began to play then, and Minho’s attention snapped back to him. The vampire seemed focused on his music, seldom looking out to the café or its visitors as he crooned out song after song about romance. The music wrapped around Minho, an almost physical warmth surrounding him through the light weight of its lyrics and the rich delivery Jonghyun’s voice gave them. 

As soon as the set was over, Jonghyun hopped up, trotting over to him after he carefully set his bass on its stand. It was as if Jonghyun had noticed him prior, and Minho wouldn’t be surprised - a vampire with a signature as strong as Jonghyun’s would surely know how to sense another in the area better than Minho had learned in his past. 

“Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” he began, leaning an arm against the counter. The cafe was warm inside, and Jonghyun’s outfit reflected it - his biceps shown off by the loose tank top he wore. Minho pointedly didn’t look at them for long, instead focusing on the light blue of Jonghyun’s eyes as he continued, “Too bad it was during my set, I would’ve introduced myself earlier. I’m -”

“Jonghyun. It says so on your business card,” Minho finished for him. Jonghyun raised one eyebrow, but didn’t continue. “Did you write them all yourself? The songs.”

Jonghyun nodded. “Not much else to do but hone your craft.”

“It’s funny that you’d sing so much about romance, burning passion... We both know we have none to speak of.” 

Jonghyun’s lips quirked up again, that same, crooked, ‘I-know-something-you-don’t’ smile. “We all keep some of ourselves.” He tapped a finger against the wood of the counter. “But once again, this isn’t quite the right venue.” Without another word, Jonghyun turned, rounding a corner slightly past the counter, near the back wall. Minho blinked, getting up to follow as he realized he wouldn’t get any of his answers if he didn’t. 

Jonghyun’s slight figure was still visible at the end of a long hallway, patiently waiting for Minho to catch up. He lead Minho down a winding staircase, down, down, down until they finally arrived at a small sitting room that was decidedly even cozier than the café above. Jonghyun held the door open for Minho to go through first, closing it firmly behind the two of them after Minho entered. As soon as the door clicked shut, Minho began to worry if he had made a mistake, trapped in another, obviously older and stronger vampire’s home without any way out, but something about Jonghyun made him curious enough to risk it. 

“So,” Jonghyun began, seating himself in one of the plush leather armchairs and gesturing for Minho to do the same. “I don’t believe I’ve caught your name quite yet.” 

“Minho. This is your…?”

“My coven, yes. You’ve already met Jinki, the only other member,” Jonghyun said. “But I don’t believe you’re here for another meet-and-greet tonight, are you?” 

Minho shook his head slightly. “I must admit have lots of questions. Though I’m not sure they’re suitable to a first true meeting.” 

“Well,” Jonghyun sighed as he settled back a little, making himself comfortable. “I don’t mind it. No need for formalities or to wait—let’s treat each other with the familiarity of friends. We have all night. This is my private room, no one should intrude.” 

Minho wasn’t sure if the idea of no one being able to interrupt them unsettled him or not.

Jonghyun smiled a little wider, obviously aiming for soothing as he said, “I’m not going to harm you, you know.” His fangs glittered in the dim oil-lamp light of the room, but Minho felt no threat from them - after all, he had them as well. 

Minho cleared his throat, embarrassed at having been caught. He’d have to work on how he displayed emotions around this vampire. “Who are you? Who are we, really? Who made us?”

“You know the answer to your first question,” Jonghyun started, “and your second. Jinki made myself. I’m not quite sure who made you.”

_ Kibum,  _ Minho’s mind prompted, unbidden. Shoving the thought and all it entailed to the back of his mind to be dealt with another time - or preferably, never - Minho frowned.  _ _ “I meant --” He struggled with the words. “Who really  _ created  _ us? A god?”

“Any god would have to have an extremely cruel sense of humor to do this,” Jonghyun replied, lacing his fingers together. “I don’t think you’ll find an answer to that one with myself. You could spend your whole immortality on it.”

* * *

“I would like to talk to you more,” Jonghyun had said at the end of their last meeting, voice dripping with sincerity and as light and smooth as Minho had already grown accustomed to. The words swam in his head for the rest of the following week, echoing like wind chimes stirred by an insistent breeze. It was one spent in solitude, as usual - Minho could only run so far from his thoughts before they began to plague him, and he needed the time alone to sort through things. 

Yet, somehow, despite the attempts he’d made to distract himself from thoughts of Kibum’s jagged grin, or Jonghyun’s smooth voice, or even the other vampire’s sharp gaze, he couldn’t. No amount of exploring the city he currently called his own or breathing in the nighttime sea air as it pounded against the cliffs at the edge of the bay could prevent him from this. It was strange, Minho thought, how duplicitous he was letting himself be: though he’d searched far and wide for vampires like himself, a hunt that spanned decades if not centuries by now, he avoided the few he had managed to discover, in the same way he’d usually avoid killing another, even if his hunger gnawed at him and made him mad. 

Minho stared up at the moon that night, seated on an abandoned pier he’d been lucky to find a few nights ago. That was his favorite part of scoping out a new city to call home for a few years; discovering the parts humanity had abandoned in their rushed, transient lives, and calling them his own until he left. Usually he would have left this city within a few days of wandering, had he not discovered the two vampires that night. They’d unknowingly tied him to this place, but he was growing to appreciate its charms, if only a little more and if only for a little while. The waves lapped against the mossy stilts it sat upon, sea spray kissing at the leg he had dangling above the water. 

The moon, suddenly and most romantically, reminded him of Jonghyun - it was mysterious, bright, and Minho thought perhaps he wouldn’t mind staring at it until he learned all the secrets it hid behind its composure. It colored the night sky around it an interesting shade of dark blue, and the combination made him smirk as he remembered the name of the cafe the other ran for a reason still beyond Minho. 

Yes, out of the handful of vampires Minho had come to know over the course of his afterlife, Jonghyun was perhaps the most memorable in the best of ways. Not like the other two he’d once known. Frowning, Minho looked down over the water, away from the benevolent brightness of the moon and towards its pale imitator cast over the surface of the water. The waves were weak tonight, strange considering the moon was full, but they still rocked the boats docked on the other side of the bay’s cusp. 

Perhaps Minho would visit Jonghyun’s cafe again tonight, just to surprise the other. He was sure by now that Jonghyun would think he had skipped town, and the thought of his eyes widening in surprise sped Minho’s steps as he made his way from the pier and along the short trip towards the cafe, leaving his memories behind him once more. Minho hoped they wouldn’t catch up with him this time. 

When he arrived at the cafe, however, in the middle of Jonghyun's crooning set, there was no reward in the form of a widening of his big, sparkling eyes. What Minho got out of Jonghyun was surprisingly much better: the older vampire noticed him push the door shut out of the corner of his eye, followed his path as he made his way towards the bar to sit down, and then winked before proceeding to put even more energy into his performance. His lips brushed against the microphone as he gripped it with a practiced grace and gentle hands. The lines, themed around a romantic look shared with a lover, were delivered with a heat that dripped over him, molten chocolate against his ears. 

The cafe was less crowded than Minho remembered, but perhaps it didn’t matter. Especially not to one who had no desire to prey upon humans after a peaceful evening out. He’d given that up long ago, after all. Minho turned away from the empty leather barstools surrounding him, peering up at the cafe’s menu board only to find it curiously blank. 

“Good evening,” the barista said to him, and Minho blinked in shock, having not realized one was even behind the counter. He remembered this man, only slightly shorter than himself with shorn black hair and a grin that was jagged and straight-toothed at the same time. The other vampire in Jonghyun’s small coven. 

“Surprised to see me?” He asked in a deep, smooth voice, icy eyes twinkling with mirth. His expression dropped then, and Minho was shocked by the different feeling his piercing gaze gave when not offset by a smile. “Most people have been. What’ll it be?” 

There was no nametag on his maroon button-down shirt, and Minho found in his fixation on Jonghyun’s existence, he’d forgotten what this vampire was called. “Black cafe de olla, dark roast,” he offered. Coffee was good, he’d found over the decades; hot like blood and with half the clumping, choking thickness. The energy it gave him did as much for him as the way it suppressed his endless hunger, and this was only the latest in a variety of non-cream-filled blends that piqued his interest. 

“Oh, specialty drink,” the vampire replied with an impressed tilt to his tone. The smile was back, and it stayed as the vampire smoothly went through the motions. It was placed on the counter along with a single slice of red velvet cake, covered in drizzled moschino cherry sauce that gave it the glisten of fake flesh and blood. “Compliments of our owner.” There was something about the way he phrased it that made Minho think he meant  _ our  _ in more ways than one. 

It was a tacky gesture in the most tongue-in-cheek way, Minho thought, to provide a free food he wouldn’t enjoy designed to look like the only type he’d been abstaining from since he fled his previous arrangements. He sighed and squinted at the nametag the vampire wore on his apron, thanking... Jinki without bothering to move the plate closer towards him. He was surprised, as well as vaguely disturbed, when the other simply kept standing by at the opposite side of the counter. “Are you not hungry?” He asked.

Minho didn’t answer, instead closing his eyes and relishing the way Jonghyun’s smooth vocals filled the cafe as he sipped at his drink. Jonghyun’s voice matched perfectly with the spark of cinnamon and bitter warmth coating his tongue, he decided. 

“He may be up there for a while,” Jinki continued, voice woven underneath and in-between Jonghyun’s syllables in the perfect duet. It all seemed so full of familiarity, and Minho wondered as to how long they’d been around each other, how deeply they’d known each other. “He likes to put on a show for the ones he fancies.” 

Minho ignored the way his pulse raced at that, chalking it up to pure teasing, and cracked his eyes open to stare into Jinki’s own once more. There was something about Jinki’s eyes that was absent from Jonghyun’s; a guarded firmness. In every sense, they were ice, but Minho got the impression that it was the last of deep ice before spring would conquer it with thaw. “And you?” 

“I like to play with my food.” Jinki smirked, plump lips shaping the words in a way that exaggerated their shape. He turned away then, and Minho thought he might take his leave, but his thoughts roared up at him like a wave, and he was no longer paying attention.

Minho had been reminded of Kibum, the way the other would smile with a sharpness held only by seasoned predators, displaying his teeth like one would a favorite weapon.  _ “I indulge in the pleasures of the flesh,”  _ he’d say to his prey over a glass of red wine or mekju, eyes flashing as they laughed into his shoulder and misinterpreted his words. Minho had been there too, once, Kibum had recalled, and all Minho had been able to remember was the unease that had settled in his human heart when Kibum’s teeth were stained red by the merlot. 

His eyebrows furrowed, and he felt his cup shaking against his lips, no longer tilted quite enough to draw liquid into his mouth. Minho set it down, sighed, and turned in his seat back towards Jonghyun’s stage. It was then he noticed Jonghyun was no longer singing; in fact, he was no longer anywhere in Minho’s line of sight. The cafe, additionally, was much emptier than it had been, and a few of the final stragglers were making their way out of the door, leaving quiet echoes of their laughter behind them. Disappointment at having missed Jonghyun sank his heart like a stone. Maybe it was time for him to go as well, maybe Jonghyun’s disappearance meant he hadn’t wanted to see Minho come back.

Turning to the bar once more, Minho set the cup down on its saucer with a sharp noise, enjoying the way the two pieces of ceramic were a perfect fit for each other. There was a time he had wanted to find a perfect fit like that, and having experienced Jonghyun’s gaze upon him… Perhaps, Minho had simply lost himself too much in a romantic fantasy he thought long abandoned. 

Just as he was deciding to let this cafe and its two associated characters rest in his memories, another thing to simply push back, avoid, or regret, Minho was spoken to - though the cafe, he knew, was supposed to be empty. 

“I’m happy to see you back here so soon,” Jonghyun said into his right ear, having seated himself at one of the accompanying stools. He played with his fingers when he spoke, Minho noticed as he turned first his eyes and then the rest of his head to look at the other. “I wasn’t expecting you back for another month, at least.” 

Minho’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, as he felt it had been too long since his last visit to the cafe. Thinking about Jonghyun every night from the first gleam of moonrise until the last light before dawn must’ve slowed his internal clock, he supposed, as otherwise he would have agreed with Jonghyun. “I couldn’t wait to come back,” he said, almost stunned at how deep the truth of the statement ran. 

“What brought you tonight?” Curiosity lit Jonghyun’s eyes, and he leaned further into Minho’s space, eyes landing on the abandoned slice of cake. A laugh slid out of him, breathy and light, and Minho found it to be as beautiful as his singing. “Ah. Who gave you that mess?”

“You did,” Minho replied, a private smile curling his lips as he applied the answer to both of Jonghyun’s questions. “At least, that’s what your coven-mate said,” he continued, waving his hand at the cake. 

The pleased smile that Jonghyun had held at his first response widened into a grin that broke and completed his face, a bark of laughter finding its way out of him. Minho revelled in the way his eyes crinkled fully shut, face lined with wrinkles where his nose and eyebrows pulled inwards. “Of course,” he said once his laughs finished overtaking him. “I don’t know what kind of sense of humor he thinks he has, that weird old man…” 

Minho smiled back, enthralled with Jonghyun in every way. He was surprised with himself, from a distant perspective, at the way all of the world around him seemed to fade into the distance so Jonghyun could remain in his full focus. It was new; it was strange, and yet, he couldn’t seem to not enjoy the sensation of falling further and further into his thrall. “Where has he gone? And everyone else?” 

There was something so human about Jonghyun, in a way Minho was unfamiliar with - the others had been so different from what he remembered as a part of humanity and his experiences of them after turning. Perhaps that was why he found his hunger intensifying the longer he stayed around Jonghyun. Or, perhaps, it was simply Kibum’s lingering effect on Minho, his opinions about feeding impressed on his mind for long after their parting. He couldn’t ponder the safety of that feeling, either for himself or for Jonghyun, when Jonghyun tilted his head coyly, bangs falling over the strong set of his eyebrows. 

“I am closing the shop,” Jonghyun responded, settling back into his usual calm demeanor, smile soft as he looked at Minho through his eyelashes. “But I’m the owner. I’ll make an exception for you, if you’d like to stay a while.” 

“The night is still young,” Minho joked, smiling down at Jonghyun as the two stood. Silence fell over them as Jonghyun led the way behind the counter, past the scattered dishes and coffee-making implements Jinki had left sitting along it, and towards the doors that led to the coven’s private quarters. 

Jonghyun was decidedly shorter than Minho, even though his leather boots appeared to have quite a bit of a lift in the heel. Minho enjoyed the way the lights glanced off of his wine-red hair, giving it a liquid appearance as they passed each candelabra mounted into the brick walls.

“Our storefront is something of our coven’s only common area, since the building is so small,” Jonghyun explained over his shoulder, “so I hope you don’t mind going back to my private room again. If you prefer, we can visit the roof.” The set of those wide shoulders was self-assured, and though Minho walked behind him, he didn’t mind following Jonghyun through the still-unfamiliar place. 

“The roof,” Minho decided quickly, thinking of the way the whites of Jonghyun’s eyes shone in the light of the cafe in the same way that the moon did in the night sky. Jonghyun hummed, and nodded, and led the way up a long flight of metal stairs tucked away in their own separate closet. 

It was disappointing when Jonghyun opened the imposing and dark door at the top of the stairs and no moonlight spilled over his skin or lit his hair like fire. Minho frowned, following Jonghyun outside quickly - and discovered the moon had been entirely covered by a thick cover of steel-grey clouds. They were suffocatingly low, brushing the tops of the skyscrapers that shot up around the squat building, and made the sky feel too close; it was nothing like the night he had seen only hours before, wide and expansive with its crown jewel blinking out at him from afar. 

“Wanted to stargaze together?” Jonghyun smirked, eyes trained on Minho’s slight frown before stepping ahead towards the edge of the rooftop. Minho’s breath caught in his throat at the sight - Jonghyun’s trim figure, wide-shouldered and narrow-waisted, darkly silhouetted against the lights of the city. Even this late, they weren’t completely off, pearls strung across the city’s architecture, and they were as unstatedly elegant as Jonghyun himself seemed to be. 

“There was quite a beautiful full moon tonight,” Minho contributed regretfully, still standing behind Jonghyun, not willing to break the image he beheld of the other vampire before him. 

“Oh,” Jonghyun hummed, turning to face Minho again. He leaned his elbows back against the iron railings of the building, carelessly bold in the way he bared himself and let his weight swing out towards the empty air. “Are you one of those ones who believes in the full-moon bloodlust, or whatever?” 

Minho laughed, coming a little closer. He wasn’t close enough to where the toes of their shoes touched, or close enough to reach out and touch the lines of Jonghyun’s arms under his tight-fitting turtleneck, but it was enough for him to see the wrinkle between Jonghyun’s nose and the corner of his mouth when he smiled. “No use believing in that when you’ve been around vampires who have that sort of bloodlust during every phase of the moon.” 

“Point taken,” Jonghyun murmured, looking at him with a scrutinizing eye. “You wouldn’t happen to be one of those, are you? The villainous sort come to trick me and indulge in the forbidden pleasure of taking another vampire’s blood?” 

His tone was non-threatening and entirely teasing, and Minho allowed himself for a moment to imagine it. It wasn’t as if he was unfamiliar with the act, with the feeling of power over another and the charged delight of indulgence. He wondered what Jonghyun’s blood would taste like, if it would be as warm and springy as the vampire himself. He even considered the feeling of Jonghyun’s pulse under his skin, against Minho’s lips, and for a moment lost himself in the idea of what it would be like to partake in him where they stood. Jonghyun would be leaned back over the city, three stories up, same as he was now. Minho would bend him further with the pressure of his weight against Jonghyun’s chest, kissing and sucking along his neck until he found the perfect spot, the one that would make him writhe and pull at Minho’s hair, and when he pulled away from Jonghyun’s neck, the two dark beads of blood that would well up from the mark would twinkle like stars in the dark city night. 

But Minho was not that kind of vampire; and the dance of submission towards another vampire was a more romantic, albeit sexually charged, courtship in his mind. It required more than two simple meetings and an ambush to make a solicitation of such a heavy-handed act. The fantasy simmered in his imagination for a moment more before the night breeze blew in his face and reminded him of where he was. He looked at the Jonghyun before him instead of imagining the Jonghyun who would splay himself out for Minho and offer his life force up, and shook his head. 

“You’re hungry though,” Jonghyun reasoned, voice dancing along the line between serious and flirty. “It’s lingered about you, all the times I’ve met you. Do you not feed?”

Minho shook his head, and before Jonghyun could begin to interrogate him, he offered, “I don’t enjoy the hunt, or thinking of humans that way.”

“Me either,” Jonghyun admitted, sounding almost relieved. Minho wondered why, for the short beat of silence he was allowed before Jonghyun continued, “That isn’t the only way to feed, though. I hope you haven’t had to sustain yourself off of city rats or something like that when blood transfusion packs exist. They’re donated willingly, after all...” 

He’d never considered blood packs before; and honestly, he wasn’t quite sure when such a thing had been invented, as isolated as he’d let himself become. Minho decided almost immediately that he would not tell Jonghyun that city rats were the exact way he’d been feeding for nearly a century, even though his tone told Minho he most likely figured as much. “Perhaps you can offer me some,” he said instead, a smile turning up his lips as he came up with his excuse, “New to this city as I am, I don’t have anyone to supply me something like that.” It was an excuse not only to cover up his past naivete, but also to see Jonghyun again, and again, and again, ad infinitum as the immortal lifespan of a vampire demanded. 

His heart thumped more heavily in his chest when Jonghyun agreed easily. 

* * *

_ The room dripped with reds of every shade and in every manner of presentation - red silk draperies, red upholstery on the lounge chairs, red rose petals scattered across the sheets similarly stained red by blood as red as the rest of the scenery. A single form lay prone on the bed, sticky with redness, bloody and barely breathing.  _

_ Kibum had figured himself lucky that night, whispering into Minho’s ear that this woman was already bleeding with a glint in his eye. Minho considered her unlucky, strewn out across the bed and soaked in her own blood, moments from death simply for the choice of enjoying a night out. He wondered if she would even survive the night, wondered if he would manage to slip away and notify the brothel’s staff before Kibum pulled him home.  _

_ In the wrong place at the wrong time. Minho supposed he had been too, and turned away from the scene with his lips curled. The night sky outside, stars mirroring the artificial captured lights of mankind, seemed much purer than the scene waiting behind him, looming and thick with the smell of death.  _

_ “Minho, turn here,” Kibum cooed, voice as tacky as the blood sticking to his teeth. “You must feed, while it’s still warm.”  _

It.  _ As if she was nothing more than an inanimate object, something far beneath them. How could it be so? Just for the sake of her mortality, her shorter lifespan? Minho scoffed. “I’m not hungry.” _

_ “You’d rather starve? I won’t let you,” Kibum said firmly, and moved, suddenly behind Minho. His hands grasped Minho’s shoulders, turned him around with a fierce strength. His eyes were cold, chips of ice against skin flushed with fresh blood.  _

_ Kibum’s lips were a red smear. Minho’s nostrils flared against his will, pulse rushing at the sight, the smell, so close to him and yet  _ too far, always too far.  _ “Why do you care?” He responded in a breath, trying not to lean closer.  _

_ “I always have,” Kibum said, eyes suddenly softening. His voice was full of depths and hidden meanings, ones better left unexplored. “Since the moment I first saw you.” His tongue glistened when he spoke, wet with both blood and bitter memories, lies Minho didn’t want to be told. If he truly cared, would he have sentenced Minho to this? To murder, treachery? To live endlessly, to feel flung apart from her by the endless flow of time? _

_ There was no more time to think, though, as Kibum’s fingernails dug into his skin with the most aching, pleasant pain, pulling him in and pressing their mouths together in a sloppy kiss. His lips were delicious, with an iron tang as sweet as candy to Minho’s starved tongue, and he licked his way in without a thought. Inside his mouth was more, ever more, blood for Minho to swallow down and heat to match it from Kibum’s own passion. The rush of it made his head spin, the desire for more overwhelming his better judgement. _

_ Minho bit down on Kibum’s tongue when it followed his own back into Minho’s mouth, canines piercing through the exposed muscle and sucking hard at the blood that beaded up. Vampires’ blood was something else - forbidden, in most cases, and all the more delicious for that - but Kibum was not one for formality, regardless of how he put on airs, and he leaned into the action willingly. He moaned into Minho’s mouth, body flush against his, writhing in his hold as he scratched red lines into Minho’s back. _

_ The taste, so sweet it turned almost cloyingly bitter, suddenly curdled in Minho’s mouth. Red, he thought around the haze of hunger, more red. Too much red. His eyes opened into the kiss and he stared, stunned, at Kibum’s eyelids, creased fervently shut. His lips went slack, and as Kibum realized, his eyes fluttered open, a movement that seemed too soft from someone Minho had always known to be firm.  _

_ “Take more,” Kibum breathed against his lips, each syllable making them brush against Minho’s own, “Let me give you more.” _

_ Horror bubbled up in Minho’s gut. This was wrong. This had, from the moment he’d died and been reborn, been wrong. “No.” He pulled away from Kibum, unwrapping his hold from around the backs of his shoulders, trying to push the other vampire away when his nails caught in the ripped fabric of Minho’s suit jacket.  _

_ “Why? What is it, why are you stopping this time?” Kibum hissed, impatience bubbling up in his movements. He drew back with eyebrows set in frustration, fists clenched. Minho ignored the way his nails dug into his palms until the skin broke, for the sheer reason that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself if he let himself focus on it. “You never finish what you start.” _

_ “Maybe I didn’t want to start any of this in the first place,” Minho shot back, swallowing uncomfortably as he realized how true the statement rang - not just in this single moment, but since he had become what he would spend eternity as. “I don’t want your blood, or hers, or anyone’s.”  _

_ “Because you have some kind of morals, right, and they keep you from doing what your physiology demands you to, even at the ultimate price,” Kibum sang sarcastically, flinging his arms to either side. He paced towards the other side of the room, where the bed and its occupant were tucked away. A tiger in his cage, and his lonely prey, freshly prepared. “She won’t die.” _

_ “But how many have you been able to say that about?” The lifeblood he’d taken from Kibum sat hot in his belly, boiling and angry, full of energy in a way human blood never was. “This has always been fucked up, Kibum.”  _

_ “Is it only fucked up when it’s them? When they’ll never know or feel the things we feel?” Kibum swiped one hand across his face, and Minho’s eyes tracked the way red was streaked across his skin following the action. “Is it still wrong when you take from me, a willing donor, another vampire?” _

_ Minho didn’t answer. If Kibum was going to be the same way he always was, maybe Minho would just leave. It would serve Kibum right, he thought, though Kibum would never try to understand that reasoning. He glanced towards the door, its ornate gold handle gleaming in the artificial light of the room.  _

_ “Of course, no response, because you can’t stand the idea of having your morals questioned,” Kibum crowed, still talking to himself, to the window, to the person he’d used. He turned back towards Minho then, mouth gruesomely twisted, and snapped when he saw Minho reaching for that handle, “You’re too much of a tenderhearted fool, Minho. Leave, go ahead. But you’ll starve without someone doing your dreaded dirty work.”  _

_ And Minho, angry that he was even somehow following Kibum’s word, turned the handle, stepping over the threshold of the door. He resolved that he would not come back.  _

* * *

Two goblets sat between them on the short coffee table, freshly emptied of their contents but still retaining a wine-red tinge to the spun gold of their insides. Minho did his best not to look too closely at Jonghyun’s lips, not wanting to see the way the red of blood stained them dark and wet. The last time he had, he hadn’t been able to look away, and flushed the same red when Jonghyun flicked his tongue over the pointed tips of his canine teeth. 

“You never told me, Minho,” Jonghyun was saying, legs crossed, one point-toed shoe bouncing in the air to some imaginary tune, “Where are you staying while you’re in the city?” 

And then there was no choice but for Minho to look up. He was drawn immediately, as he always was, into the depths of Jonghyun’s eyes, dark and alluring. They were full of concern for him, unsurprisingly - over the last few weeks, Minho had been the recipient of most of his well-meaning concerns and worries. Jonghyun had coerced him into coming every other day to feed, once he found out it’d been well over twenty years since he last tasted the blood of a human, and quickly drained his private reserves to help him back to his full strength. Always, the shared meal occurred in Jonghyun’s quarters, usually after a long evening of Minho watching him perform from across the room with a low, simmering heat in his gaze. The same embers were always placed in the fireplace tucked against the far wall of Jonghyun’s main suite, lighting the space as much as it created new darknesses to hide within. Such an environment, mysterious and comfortable as much as it was dangerously unknown, seemed suited to Jonghyun. 

He enjoyed it, of course. But Minho couldn’t help but feel the unease and anxiety of wondering -  _ what else was there to this?  _ Why would Jonghyun willingly extend himself so far for Minho, if there were no motive behind the action? There had always been a reason behind Kibum’s every move, a slow and sure game of mental chess he had once explained to Minho as setting the scene for his own triumphs, a chase that made the fruits of the hunt all the more delicious. Something in the poise of Jonghyun’s behavior suggested that he was the same type, but Minho almost couldn’t mind the idea - if he was Jonghyun’s prey, then let him be, for the end of where their paths converged would be one to relish in himself. It stirred something in him to think about, even now, as he stared at the way the flames created moving shadows on the planes of Jonghyun’s skin. 

“Nowhere in particular,” Minho hummed. It sounded like hedging, even to his own ears, but it was true - he hadn’t decided on a permanent residence, especially not with the price of hotels in the city. Every morning was somewhere new, a different homeless encampment, surrounded by warm bodies he would not allow himself to interact with for fear of his still-ingrained hunger overtaking him, or an abandoned corner of an old building with glass shards to be swept away from the floor before he slept upon it. It was nothing like Jonghyun’s glamorous living arrangements, with leather recliners in his private spaces and a whole entire floor to himself. 

“Perhaps you would like to stay here for a short while.” Jonghyun stood up, collecting the emptied goblets off the table and moving away to set them in the kitchen area that was tucked aside into another room. As if predicting Minho’s hesitation, he reasoned, “At least think about the idea. You’re welcome for as long as you wish, until you leave.” 

Minho didn’t say that whenever he was around Jonghyun, he felt as though he never would, content to let Jonghyun allow him to be in his presence for as long as the other vampire wanted. Instead, he nodded his head, thankful for the invitation, unsure if he should take it. “Will you want me to come back tomorrow?”

Jonghyun chuckled, settling himself back in the chaise lounge he often sat in when they were there together. Minho's heart privately squirmed with pleasure at the idea that they were around each other so often that he was able to pinpoint routines between them. “It’s always up to you. I have no hold over you.”

If he only knew how wrong he was. 

He laid himself out further along the chaise, limbs going loose and pliant as the blood began to take effect. Every night Minho visited the cafe, Jonghyun insisted to drink with him, though he had no need to. The excess blood was like wine to him, and Minho often saw the other like this - practically drunk, with a small, private smile on his face as he stared at the shadows cast on the ceiling. It was a sight that was hard not to enjoy, for the way it fueled Minho’s thoughts of another reason he’d like to see Jonghyun laying with his legs spread wide and his eyes fiery with some unknown emotion. 

“Have I ever told you how I was turned, or when?” Jonghyun murmured after a long silence during which Minho had allowed himself to look as long as he wanted. “It just occurred to me that I haven’t. I don’t tell many people, but... I consider you my friend.”

The goblets were cheesy, and Minho had laughed at Jonghyun the first time he’d pulled them out with a triumphant smile on his face, but he wished Jonghyun hadn’t put them away. Then he would have a reason for not responding, for hiding his blush behind the rim of the cup as he tried to fight down the rush in his pulse. Still, he was shocked into near-silence at what might’ve been an obvious declaration, and Jonghyun frowned, eyes soft with his intoxication. 

“Do you not consider me yours?” He asked, hesitance pulling at the natural flow of his words, and Minho was quick to lean forward in his seat, placing his elbows on his knees and shaking his head. 

“Of course I do, I was just surprised.”

“I hope it’s a good surprise to know you have a friend in me,” Jonghyun said, the smile slowly returning to his lips as he turned his head to face Minho. His tongue slipped out to lick at one of his fangs, something nervous yet alluring. His hair fanned out over the arm of the chaise lounge, dropping over the side in a bloody waterfall. Minho allowed himself to want for a moment, looking at this Jonghyun, imagining if his eyes would twinkle the same way if Minho ran his fingers through his hair. “So, do you want to know?”

Minho wanted to know so much about Jonghyun; where he was born, where he was turned. Who Jinki was to him, and how he ended up in this city in a far-flung corner of North America, and what Minho could do to be his in a way that went past a shallow friendship. “Yes,” he said simply, trying not to let all the emotional desires whirling around in his head choke the word. 

Jonghyun’s grin widened, then, almost predatorily, and Minho fought the way his stomach swooped to pay attention to his words more than to the way his lips moved with them. “It was a long time ago. It was… a different time, I suppose. Humanity’s population was smaller, we were more scared of things like monsters. Death was a friend to the people, I think, moreso than a distant relative.” 

Eyebrows raising, Minho nodded, trying to show he was listening. Jonghyun’s smile faded for a moment as he paused and thought, expression growing more considering as he slowly continued, “I was rather young when I stopped feeling that way. I guess I’d always been too philosophical, and maybe too naive, but I wondered about the fear behind it all. My friend, someone I really was probably in love with back then, fell into a river when I was... twenty-seven, I think. That snapped me out of it fast.”

“What did you do?” Minho asked, somehow already hooked in Jonghyun’s short story. Knowing it was all of who he would become… Minho held onto every word, leaning his elbows forward onto his knees.

“Of course I had to save him,” Jonghyun assured. “I jumped into the river, freezing cold as it was, and fished him out. I threw him up onto the shore, and he barely made it, but then there I was, fighting against the same current. It was hard, it was tiring. I didn’t know what to do, the sun had just gone down. I think that’s when I really understood what other people felt about the idea of dying. No one’s invincible, except immortals.”

“Except vampires,” Minho echoed, still confused, somehow deeply worried for a Jonghyun so far removed from the one sitting before him, a Jonghyun who was in a danger that this one would never come by again.

“I had made friends with a local outcast,” Jonghyun smiled at that, voice growing fond as he recalled, “He was considered something of a witch, a hermit who never came out of his home at the edge of the local village. But I had been sent on errands to his home enough times, for little things like spices or the fish he caught himself, that I knew him well enough to call myself his friend. He wasn’t scary, but humanity was so wary back then, of strangers and the unknown - I was told not to see him anymore, and I did it anyways.”

Minho had an idea of who that person was, but he didn’t bother guessing, especially not since Jonghyun seemed eager to continue with, “Of course, it was Jinki. He stayed out of the way of the people, only coming out at night, as you’d expect of him. Really… I think lots of things about that situation were serendipitous. It was his favorite river to fish in, and he’d come out early that day. His fishing pole was still strapped on his back when he came up the bend and saw me flailing in the water like a fool,” He recalled with a smirk, nearly laughing at himself.

His eyes cleared as he looked at Minho straight-on, no longer lost in his memories as much as he was in the haze of blood-drunkenness as he said, “I’m sure you know what would’ve happened after he pulled me out, or could put it together.” 

With a nod, Minho conceded that - he had no idea when this story could’ve taken place, other than that it was long before he’d been born or turned, but all turning stories had the same ending, one full of darkness and ripping hunger and euphoric rebirth. Shaking his head, Minho said with a voice full of a near-confused wonder, “You must be very fond of him to have stuck around this long.” 

“I do love him,” Jonghyun replied, in a voice that gave away nothing more than that. His eyes still caught on Minho’s, and something in them told Minho that there was love beyond the sort only reserved for Jinki inside his heart. He wouldn’t let himself hope, though, and let his own gaze skitter away. 

* * *

_ “And why the hell did you bring someone else into all this, really?” Minho snapped, fingernails clawing against the table in his frustration. Kibum didn’t answer immediately, just kept drinking, pulling slyly from his crystal flute. The mood had been tense since that night fell and the two had convened to find Taemin missing from the house, and Kibum had disappeared and returned with two glasses in hand, filled to the brim with dark fluid. There was no reason for his disappearance, and Minho worried, worried to the point of wanting to lash out at Kibum. So he had. The mood spiraled, and Minho’s concern went with it, dipping into anger. His eyes fixed on the glasses again. He knew what was in there, and how Kibum had gotten it, and he hated it. The one sitting just next to his own hand seemed to mock him, the cut facets of it gleaming in the light and reflecting red with the blood it held.  _

_ Licking his lips, Kibum finally answered, “Does it matter? Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I thought  _ you  _ were lonely. You seemed to hate me enough, no friends either.”  _

_ “So, what? You thought you’d just create a friend for me, like some false God?” Ignoring the fact that Taemin really had become one of Minho’s friends, and Minho was grateful for Taemin himself for that - Minho just got angrier and angrier with each word Kibum spoke. He always seemed to try to take care of Minho in ways he never asked for; every time aggrieved Minho more than the last. He thought about saying as much, but the words felt almost trapped behind his teeth, roiling and fierce.  _

_ “I’m not that vain,” Kibum retorted, rolling his eyes and setting down his own flute with a tap. “And look at how nice it’s been, now that I’ve taken that initiative. There’s laughter in these halls, more than there’s been since we first met. I don’t see why you’re so angry, even though I’m trying to see this from your eyes.” _

_ “I’m angry because you never ask what anyone wants, you just do it anyways,” Minho finally burst out after a minute of silence. He was nearly angry enough to drink the blood before him, that dangling mockery of an offering to him, just to have it out of his sight. He poured it out on the table instead, letting it dye the wood black and watching it flow along the grain. “Did you ever think that neither of us wanted to be vampires?” _

_ “Obviously I had, if you’d ever remember the night of your turning,” Kibum snapped, eyes locked on the dark pool between them. “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry for not letting you waste away then?”  _

_ “You’ve done more than enough, there,” Minho muttered, thinking of all the ways Kibum had laid out his thoughts of that time, all the times he’d prevented Minho from starving, and all the ways he’d tried to get close to Minho before revealing that he was a vampire and if Minho was hurting, he could make it stop. “You should apologize to Taemin, not me.” _

_ “Great idea, except he’s not fucking here,” Kibum hissed. “I don’t want to be fucking here, either. Maybe I’ll go find him, and prostrate myself at his feet. Just for you.”  _

_ There’s no point to that, Minho thought to himself, thinking about the times he’d accompanied Taemin on his hunts. Young and fresh though the vampire was, he was more skilled at seduction than Kibum himself, and Minho had been relieved for his morals when they’d gone through a night brainstorming the best ways for Taemin to feed without hurting a soul. But he didn’t say a word, letting Kibum snatch up both of their empty glasses and storm out of the room.  _

_ He didn’t come back, leaving Minho alone at their communal dining table for what felt like hours, alone with thoughts loud enough to fill the entire room. He knew beyond anything that Kibum cared, that Kibum loved him and to some extent loved Taemin as well, but he never listened, and it pissed Minho off.  _

_ Minho kicked one foot idly against the leg of Kibum’s chair, imagining Kibum was still sitting there. “Why are you always getting so defensive, huh?” He muttered to it. “Why can’t you just admit it when you make a mistake. So immature for a six-hundred-something year old vampire.”  _

_ He continued to fight with himself at the table, taking his time going through every conversation he could possibly have with Kibum. The ones where Kibum returned, grabbed Minho’s hands gently in his own, and apologized before agreeing to search for Taemin together were the best ones, riveting in the way they made Minho feel vindicated. But that wasn’t real, and neither one would look for Taemin - all they could do now was wait for him.  _

_ And wait they did, wandering through the empty halls and sending each other clipped glares when their paths happened to cross. As the nights passed, he saw Kibum less and less, until he stopped appearing altogether, the house laying seemingly empty except for Minho. Blood was left on the table for Minho, though, freshly poured in the same glass every night. He always drank it, though begrudgingly, knowing that worrying and seething would get his energy down faster than it would otherwise.  _

_ Every night was the same, and when Minho finally thought he’d leave, too, he walked into the dining area that evening to find Taemin himself. He sat small and silent at the table, sipping at his own glass while another sat full in front of it, at Minho’s usual place. The fight that’d been coiling up in Minho’s joints for weeks disappeared, leaving his shoulders dropping and his mood sinking. _

_ “Where’d you go?” He murmured, the quiet words traveling easily across the even quieter room. Taemin looked up, surprised, and then smiled at him, just a little.  _

_ “Just anywhere, nowhere,” Taemin said. “Kibum found me, though. Sat me down where I was and had a long talk with me.” He looked happy and sad at the same time, and he spoke out of the corner of his mouth when he continued, “Thanks for making him think.”  _

_ Minho huffed out a laugh, almost incredulous at the idea that what he did actually worked. Sitting across from Taemin, he grasped his own glass, fiddling with the cut decorations on it as he mused, “I almost think that’s my job, in this coven.”  _

_ “He does a lot of thinking without you, too,” Taemin responded, then rushed to say, “I mean, when you’re not around… He thinks about you, then. He has a lot of regrets.”  _

_ “That’s for him to care about,” Minho muttered, mood turning dark again at the idea of what involving him Kibum could possibly regret. It was a comfort that he cared in that way, though. “What’s done has been done.”  _

_ “What’s done can be made good by,” Taemin countered, gesturing to the glass of blood. “He’s tried to get this batch more ethically. He’ll learn, as long as you don’t leave him alone.” _

_ Minho didn’t say what he thought, which was: Why would he mind if I left, when you’re right here now? The thought turned the blood he drank bitter in his throat.  _

* * *

The cafe had been strangely empty when Minho flung the door open and walked in with a briskness that matched the evening air that autumn. It truly did have little patronage to begin with, but Minho was unsettled by the lack of the regular faces he’d grown comfortable seeing each night. They were something of his companions, in a way, all brought together within the atmosphere Jonghyun’s performances so effortlessly created. Each night he spent in the cafe seemed to pass in seconds as long as Jonghyun was around. This time, though, he wasn’t, and a sense of foreboding came over Minho as he strode through the space of the cafe, footsteps echoing. Chairs were still stacked on their tables, the bar not freshly wiped down, even the mic stand sometimes Jonghyun used with an erotic gentleness was tucked away on a corner of the stage. He frowned. 

“Jonghyun? ...Jinki?” He called, to no response. If neither were here, then why was the door to the cafe still unlocked?

It was dark behind the counter, and even more so in the private hallway that Minho let himself into. Every time he’d been in Jonghyun’s company, they’d come this way, and yet Minho knew that if he were to do so alone, he would most likely fall out of Jonghyun’s good graces. That consequence seemed minor in comparison to the concern he had for his safety, and he continued onwards, one hand dragging against the exposed brick. 

Minho continued to call the two vampires’ names periodically, though there might have been no point - if they were able to respond, they would have sensed his presence by now. The sound came back to him quickly, like there were other people standing right next to him, shouting the exact same things. Minho decided then to be quiet, to listen. 

Vampires were lucky in some respects - immortality gave their senses a boost, rather than the slow decay one might expect of old age in a mortal. Hearing was one such sharpened sense, but despite that, Minho couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Only the simple drop of rainwater running through cracks in the ceilings and the sharp taps of his own steps met his ears. 

The hallways twisted and turned, unnervingly unfamiliar to Minho as he passed Jonghyun’s own door. With a simple knock gone unanswered, he’d known Jonghyun wasn’t there; yet another abnormality of the night. It felt like the walls would close in on Minho if he went much further, the ceiling sloping at random points, the floors gradually going up, and up, and up, connected by flights of stairs that were just outside what Minho would consider normal dimensions. He spared a passing thought wondering when and why it had been built like this, in a city so relatively young it had complied with building codes since birth. 

Until he reached the end of the hallway. The brick widened out into an entryway, the first true one Minho had seen since Jonghyun’s own quarters, and facing Minho stood a black set of French doors, unfamiliar to him. They sucked up the sparse light coming from the nearby candles, but behind them, Minho could hear the sounds of a struggle - the faint noises of cloth ripping and grunts that didn’t sound like they belonged to either vampire. 

Minho knew he had to go in, heart pounding at the idea of Jonghyun or even Jinki in danger, and yet his hand stalled anxiously on the handle of the door. Whoever was inside sounded powerful, and Minho felt the sense that they wouldn’t welcome his presence; what if he wasn’t able to help, and instead placed them all in further danger?

A frown dug into his features, and his grip tightened around the black metal of the handle. If that was the case, fine. He wouldn’t just sit by and wait for whoever was inside to suck his friends’ veins dry and let them wither away in the process.

The cold, chilling sweat running down the nape of his neck gave him a boost of adrenaline as much as cracking the door open did, and Minho quietly toed his way inside, not wanting to alert anyone inside to his presence. The noises were louder immediately, almost too loud, overwhelming. Minho tensed when he recognized the sound of someone moaning in pain. 

Through the small sitting area he went, sparing no mind for the homey way it was furnished, ignoring evidence that it might not be the most accessible place for any attackers. 

Minho’s mind fled to Taemin, strangely and suddenly, as he rounded the corner to follow the incessant sound. If anyone would go to such extremes, it would be Taemin; as contrary as he acted most of the time, he would do anything at Kibum’s behest. Minho cursed his naivete at putting his new companions in danger, at not having warned them that his past was very much alive and willing to haunt him. 

Ahead, the lights were dimmer, only a single chandelier lighting the space, and Minho knew at a glance this was where the crime was being committed. Two bodies writhed together on the bed, sheets dark enough that Minho couldn’t tell if they were naturally maroon or dyed with fresh blood. Here, the smell of iron was mixed with that of sweat and sex, and his heart plummeted with unknown emotion. The moans filling the room, now a weaving a song of pleasure instead of a cacophony of agony, were instantly recognizable as Jonghyun’s. It was Jonghyun’s strong hands gripping with a desperate, white-knuckled need at the back of the one atop him. His body was entirely bare, sweat making his skin glisten golden in the dim light, muscles tensed with some far-off euphoria as the other’s head slowly bobbed down to suck wetly at his neck again. 

This was no crime, and no murder was being committed at this site, and yet Minho knew he would mourn what he’d seen and the feelings he’d dashed with his nosiness. 

Minho stumbled back from the room, back through the short hallway separating it and the attached sitting room, and promptly tripped over the edge of an ornate rug. He gasped sharply, heels slipping with a sharp squeal as he fell on his own ass. 

It was undoubtedly pointless for him to try and avoid being noticed now, but Minho couldn’t help the silent way he tried to spring to his feet and run back to the safety of the common hallway immediately. The noises had stopped, and his flustered movements seemed only louder in this silence. 

“What are you doing here?” Came a voice, sonorous as a bell through the silence, when Minho’s left foot had cleared the threshold. 

He turned, with no other choice. Jinki stood there, mouth dripping with blood, half-dried streams and drops of dark red staining his neck and cheeks. He was fully clothed, rumpled and yet somehow imposing, a powerful presence tinged with an implied threat. “I have not invited you inside,” he continued, voice deeper and richer than Minho remembered, as if the thickness of fresh blood had clogged his throat. Jonghyun’s blood. 

An anxious shiver ran down Minho’s spine. “I—” He started in a gasped inhale, before finding himself unable to continue. Any excuse he tried to make would surely make things worse. “I’ll leave,” he choked out, backing up a single pace. 

“I don’t believe you will,” Jinki replied firmly, following Minho with a step forward, “until you’ve explained yourself.” He was close enough for Minho to see the way his irises shook, black with how wide his pupils were blown. 

“Jinki!” Jonghyun snapped, suddenly rushing into the room with his arms crossed. There was a flustered blush to his cheeks that didn’t match his otherwise pallid complexion, drained of blood as he must’ve been. Minho could hardly bear to look at him, half clothed in a pair of loose-fitting shorts and covered in fresh, dark bitemarks. Most were scattered along his neck and chest, with a few trailing up his inner thighs. “Stop this.”

Jinki turned to Jonghyun, the set of his eyes softening in an instant as he strode back towards him. With a hand cupped gently under Jonghyun’s elbow, he murmured, not too quietly for Minho to catch, “I don’t want anyone else to see you like this. How you are for me.” 

Jonghyun huffed, shaking his head. It only showed off the hickey carefully sucked along one side of his nape, and Minho’s heart burned itself up. “I don’t care if Minho sees me looking like this, Jinki, for obvious reasons.” When Jinki cocked his head to one side, as if confused, Jonghyun spared a glance at Minho before leaning closer, lips brushing the curves of Jinki’s ear, sharing some secret. 

More things he didn’t understand, restricted areas of Jonghyun’s life he likely wouldn’t find any access to. Minho felt as if by opening that door to the back-rooms of the cafe by himself, he had slammed countless others in his own face. He retreated a few more steps, unable to tear his eyes away from how close Jinki and Jonghyun stood; unable to not notice how even then, arguing in near-silent whispers with glances thrown his way every other second, they gravitated together. It wasn’t anything like the way Jonghyun carefully seated himself across the room from Minho every evening they spent together. He’d overestimated his place and he’d overwrought his own whirlwind crush, and now he was here.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice pitched to reach the two standing across the room, and turned to leave the cafe, resolute in each step he took away from Jinki’s private quarters. He didn’t know what expressions had passed through Jonghyun’s deep, wobbly eyes then, and he didn’t know if Jinki would follow him with a vengeance. He didn’t turn around to look. 

* * *

_ “What would you do if I told you you weren’t the only one?” Kibum mused, toying with Minho’s fingers and holding up his hand before the light of the candle to watch how it turned the thin edges of his skin golden and sunset orange.  _

_ “The only one?” Minho echoed, eyes travelling over the various couples crowded around the bar. Staring at Kibum during moments like these, where he was gentle and tender, was too dangerous; he refused to let his eyes catch on the fond expression on the other’s face. It was easier than feeling all the twisted complications that came with the emotion it caused.  _

_ “My only consort, my only turned one,” Kibum explained, a smug twist to his lips when Minho took a glance over.  _

_ “I would wonder if you doomed another like you did me.”  _

_ “It’s not my fault if you choose the wrong answers when I ask you questions,” Kibum murmured, dropping Minho’s hand and letting him take it back.  _

_ “Did I?” Minho mused. He pretended to have forgotten, trying to tease Kibum with a torment only he would know, but it was empty for them both; Minho had driven himself mad from the memories and driven Kibum to guilt too many times for their immortality to bear. “Did someone else?”  _

_ Kibum hummed. “Perhaps.” That was all he needed to say to send anxieties coursing through Minho, fresh horrors at the idea of another vampire for Kibum to cavort with. Someone else might unbridle the tentative moral compass Minho had instilled in Kibum, might make him lose the empathy he’d gained for Minho and his own victims. And beneath that, the need to not be left behind by Kibum or abandoned by him - though Minho didn’t feel like facing that feeling in the company of its subject.  _

_ “Who?” He breathed, choking on the word. Realizing it was not a productive question, considering they’d long since hopped off the Korean Peninsula and outlived anyone they would’ve known there, he quickly pressed, “When?” _

_ “Maybe I’ll let him tell you all you want to know,” Kibum mused. “Then you might actually believe him when he says something positive about his time with me.” There was a grudging anger laced beneath the casual words, and Minho felt sorry for it, but he could not forget or forgive.  _

_ The conversation ended there, and Minho almost started believing that it had been a lie as the night wound down and the bar ushered them out for closing. It was a cold night out, frost filling his lungs with every breath, but neither made any move to put on the thick coats they had slung over their arms.  _

_ “Why are we still standing around?” Minho asked after a few minutes spent doing just that. Kibum checked his watch for the fifth time since they’d begun standing on the cobbled street corner, and huffed out a sigh.  _

_ “It’s too cold for this, you’re right,” Kibum muttered. “Let’s go home.” With that, he turned, as if to make his way to this decade’s mansion. Minho didn’t like the large, sprawling houses Kibum had turned towards choosing as the century began to turn, but it was what was in style - no new houses any smaller than fifteen rooms were built to the standard Kibum enjoyed.  _

_ “Key!” A voice, high and youthful, called as they started down the street and turned off into a narrow alleyway. Kibum perked up immediately, head whipping around as he searched for the source, which continued to call his name at a steady clip.  _

_ “What’s this?” Minho asked, uneasily shifting on his feet. People who knew of Kibum were often soon dead, or the type of people Minho had no enjoyment of meeting. He glared down at the tainted standing water of the alleyway before glancing up at the alley’s entrance.  _

_ “My new creation,” Kibum said in a breathless tone, brimming with awe. It was something Minho had never heard from him before, and curious, his eyes caught on a faint movement where the alley’s brick walls ended and opened out into the street they had just left.  _

_ “Key! I’m back,” the voice sang, and a young man, shorter than Minho and with a face rounder than either of theirs, spun into the alley. His shoulders were wet with what Minho assumed to be blood, and his cheeks were squished so far by his wide smile that his eyes were nearly shut with glee. “I know you worried about me, but I was fine~”  _

_ “As if I would worry,” Kibum scoffed. His whole demeanor seemed to shift as he leaned in, gravitating like a comet pulled towards a sun. “Either you do well, or you don’t. Which was it, Taeminnie?” _

_ “I did better than you would have, I bet,” the newcomer laughed. It was a laugh that sounded fake to Minho’s ears, a harsh  _ ha-ha-ha  _ that seemed nearly deceitful, and Minho felt a frown begin to score his face. He took no notice of Minho, swaying and moving aimlessly as he continued, “It wasn’t as bad as you told me it would be, the first night alone. My first hunt.” _

_ Minho felt the disgust of it well up thick in his throat, sticky and dark like tar. He turned slightly, making to leave, when Kibum’s hand grabbed his wrist, pulling him back towards him. “Taemin, introduce yourself. Minho’s the other one you’ll be seeing a lot of.” _

_ Taemin pouted and puffed at the direction. “Nice to meet you,” Taemin hedged, “Although we’ve met before.”  _

_ Minho realized why his face had looked so familiar at the start - Taemin was their mail delivery boy, the one who wore a near-comical costume for it. Last week, he’d found Minho sitting on the stoop of their home, then overcome with a lost feeling, a small desire to get away from this situation that could not bring him to push himself away from Kibum - Kibum was, overall, kind, and he looked at Minho like he was his whole world. He’d stumbled back inside to avoid the burning rays of the sun, and Kibum had chewed him out about not being seen by humans who weren’t prey or otherwise intoxicated, worrying for their safety in such a foreign country. He wondered what kind of consequence this was, to be faced with the same person who’d asked him innocently if he’d drunk too much last night as he passed the mail over, knowing they would never regain that spark of human life they’d had in their eyes.  _

_ He wondered how old Taemin had been before he turned, when Kibum posed the question to him, how Kibum had managed to corner him. The visions of it rose up all-consuming behind his eyes, like a movie reel he couldn’t stop. Minho felt a reply stick in his throat, caught in tar.  _

_ He wouldn’t ask.  _

_ And yet, somehow, he ended up doing just that.  _

_ A number of weeks had passed, Taemin settling into one wing of their mansion while Kibum secluded himself, claiming he needed rest. The two younger vampires danced around each other, conducting elaborate games of chess designed to avoid or attract attention. Either way, Minho came no closer to understanding why Kibum had picked Taemin or overhearing any of the other details about the event.  _

_ Taemin himself had become something of an enigma to Minho. His previous life entirely unknown outside of their scant interactions and his avoidance of Minho now only added to the shroud of mystique around him. He wasn’t sure, at this point, how to even approach him.  _

_ In the end, it was an issue taken care of for him, as Kibum ordered them both to stop hiding like scared kittens and wait for him in the main hall of their home while he went out to hunt. They sat across from each other in the foyer, sprawled with a tense imitation of casualness against the couches and letting their eyes skirt around each other.  _

_ Minho felt almost foolish - Taemin was young, with a kind and easy tilt to his eyes that made him seem friendly compared to the idea of him he’d built up in his mind. The silence stretched out long and thin, not at all comfortable, and Minho let the foot he had propped up against his knee bounce with impatience. Taemin’s gaze followed it, pupils shaking in time with his movements.  _

_ “Do you really hate drinking blood?” Taemin suddenly blurted out.  _

_ With a frown, Minho questioned, “Where’d you hear that?” _

_ Taemin sighed and slouched a little further in his seat, looking all of a sudden too small in the huge room. “Kibum complains about it all the time, how hard it is to take care of you. But he’s… biased.” _

_ Minho huffed, ignoring the zing in his chest from the idea of being taken care of by Kibum. “So you’ve noticed that much.” Taemin shrugged with one shoulder, still looking off to one side as Minho continued, “I do, a little. There’s something awful about the experience of hunting like this, walking around in a bar like it’s a butcher’s shop.” _

_ Taemin grunted, noncommittal. “I’m too young to go into a bar. I’ll always be too young, now.” And there was the answer to Minho’s question of age. He sounded a little rueful of it, but more so amused at the idea. Minho liked him, then, a little bit.  _

_ ”When Kibum turned you… Did you want that?” Minho asked, a little brazen with his curiosity. _

_ “He asked me the same thing,” Taemin admitted easily, shrugging one shoulder. His clothes looked too big on him, and it made him look even younger than he was. Minho wanted to protect him, a little, but from what, he didn’t know. “I think I have always wanted something like this. Something exciting, something… something that makes me stand out well.” _

_ Taemin’s gaze slipped back to him, slow and examining, and Minho knew he was smarter than he was letting on, that if he didn’t tell Taemin his own story, he would probably weasel everything out of Kibum within a few days. Everything about Minho, laid bare for Taemin, like a feast for the mind. He wondered if he should rob Kibum the pleasure and tell it his own way, swapping stories to build a camaraderie, but - Minho wouldn’t, something in the back of his throat curdling at the thought of having to say it. The silence drew out thin and tenuous between them, and Minho snipped it like a spare thread when he asked, “How about you? You really love drinking blood?” _

_ With a quiet laugh, like the one he’d given before when they first met, Taemin explained, “I’m not sure. The taste changes, doesn’t it? Like wine… Can anyone say there’s truly not one kind of wine they like?” _

_ If only it was just wine they drank, Minho thought, bitter. He gave Taemin that one though, conceding with a curt nod - it wasn’t untruthful, either; he could remember a taste of blood he’d loved, at the edges of his memories, dark and damp and spun together with threads of his own near-death.  _

_ He pushed the memory to the back of his mind, leaned forwards, and began to ask Taemin about other things, his life and his loves and everything else he thought. It was distracting, in a delightful type of way, to watch his face light up a little more with every admission, and Minho thought perhaps they could be friends.  _

* * *

Minho had decided on a pure whim that he would visit the pier again, some urge in his bored and lonely heart taking root in the comfort of the soft crash of waves and the winking starlight. It was nearly dawn, this time; although, as delirious as he felt, he might not have minded staying out a little past the time the sun’s rays would begin to burn into his skin. It was simply something to do, somewhere else to go. A distraction, as many things currently were, from the discomforts gnawing away at him.

Jonghyun had been good to Minho, feeding him so frequently he’d almost forgotten the taste of hunger against his tongue, and his body was rebelling against his choice to stay far from the cafe. He wasn’t sure what other choice he might have, though, internally cringing away at the idea of going in person and facing Jinki. All his mind would show him when he thought of the two were reels of the way they looked curled around each other; the cranberry-brightness of Jinki’s lips, freshly dyed with Jonghyun’s blood; the way Jonghyun thrusted up into Jinki’s stomach when the other had leaned with all his weight against Jonghyun’s chest; the rings of red along every plane of Jonghyun’s sculpted, naked body, and the knowledge that someone else was allowed to put them there. Minho couldn’t apologize with those images still fresh in his mind, imprinted behind his eyelids whenever he blinked. 

He shuffled his way down the dark planks making up the pier, enjoying the way his steps thumped heavily against them - a fresh and interesting change from the sharp clip of stone that he’d grown accustomed to as a regular at the cafe. The moon was setting, hidden behind the hills that rose up from the water across the bay, but its light still made the night less than insufferably dark. Minho recalled with a scoff how he’d thought of Jonghyun as the moon. The metaphor still held true. Jonghyun was beautiful, effortlessly, enough to take his breath away. Jonghyun was unreachable, especially by him. 

This deck had fallen into disuse, but Minho could hear the calls and splashes of shiphands along the ones near it, and he put his chin in one of his palms, considering their lives. How different it must be, he wondered, to live your life at sea, to never worry about the affairs of the people you left behind on land. It was something like the life of a vampire - sucking what you needed out of a community you visited, never coming back unless you had to. Maybe that was only the life of a vampire who couldn’t face himself in the mirror. 

His head swam, full of thoughts like waves that threatened to bowl him over, and Minho stared vacantly down at the ripples of the dark saltwater as he let his own whims wash over him. It would have been nice to become one of Jonghyun’s coven, and he’d thought himself close to that achievement. 

His eyelids slipped shut, a blink heavier and longer than he’d known in centuries. Maybe he had been foolish to let his shyness and his immaturity keep him from the only source of steady food he had. Surely Jonghyun would have forgiven him. Echoes of his voice whispered in Minho’s head in the day, when he found himself unable to sleep, memories more of the fullness in his tone and the warmth he carried around inside him than of any specific phrase. 

Ah, he was so hungry. Minho sighed, a dry breath against his dry lips, and wondered again at the marvel of Jonghyun’s skin marked with so many bites. Minho slouched down further, nearly laying down on the pier, and squinted out at the stars. They were barely visible, and he wondered if the dawn was that close already. How had it already been another night? He must have been bordering on three weeks since he last fed, but he wasn’t sure; time felt so much longer than it used to, with how he was becoming unused to letting days slip by him in the same manner he’d allowed them to for decades. Jonghyun had given him too much to look forward to to let him do that. 

Minho’s eyes closed. He was ready to sleep, the fact that he was in the direct path of the sunlight be damned. Vampires were nocturnal, their skin sheltered from the harshness of day as much as possible, but what would a single day of it do to him? Sunburn him at most, Minho mused, mind already unraveling into a state of subconsciousness. 

A hand, fingers long and firm, tried to shake him awake as he was just falling asleep. Damn them, Minho muttered to himself, turning over and squeezing his eyes further shut as the sun began to shine on his face. 

“Thank you,” came a quiet voice, after what could have been minutes or hours. It was woven through with worry and concern, and Minho wondered why someone was so worried inside his dream. It certainly wasn’t anything familiar, as he was usually the only one in his dreams; himself and darkness. “Minho,” the voice said, in the same tone, closer to Minho’s ear. 

And there was the shaking again, that wretched sensation. Minho groaned and tried to squirm away from the firm grip on his shoulders, until his hands no longer felt like there was anything beneath them. Where was he, again… His head hurt terribly, and he no longer liked this dream. 

“Wake up,” the voice insisted, annoying and loud. “Minho!” 

The voice didn’t shout at him again, thankfully, instead resorting to muttering things below its breath as he was jostled around and lifted. Minho almost marveled at the sensations of a firm warmth beneath him, swaying as it carried him off, his feet dangling and his thighs gripped by firm, large hands. He’d never had a dream so vivid, not since he was a human. He buried his face into the body in front of him, surprised to find it soft and smelling of lemongrass. It was much warmer than the sunlight he could feel burning into the back of his head, and he sighed blissfully.

It was almost too soon when he felt himself deposited on a much softer surface than the pier’s wooden planks had been. Minho regretted that his time spent snuggling into the warmth of what must’ve been another person was over; it was something he had next to no experience with following his turning, and he missed it more than he realized. A sigh slipped past his lips, but he had no energy to do more than that. Perhaps, when he woke up, he wouldn’t remember any of this. Sleep was a strong keeper, pulling him back in at every moment, and Minho did little to fight against it. 

“Minho. Take this,” the voice stated again, and there was a quiet noise like a kiss before something hot was pressed against his half-open mouth. The small taste he got of it was better than anything he’d ever known, full of zing and warmth and  _ life. _

He latched on before he became aware of what he was doing, body acting instinctively to bite down. Flesh parted beneath his canine teeth, widening the small wound he’d felt against his tongue. Ichor flowed into his waiting mouth, hot and wet, better than anything he’d ever had in his life. He drank and drank, pulling with a fervor he’d never known. The sensation of it was addictive, a tingling rush in each of his fingers as he gained energy from what he was waking up enough to understand was blood. If he could continue like this forever, endlessly feeding until his veins flowed sluggish with too much blood, Minho thought he surely would. There was no drunken feeling to it, only more and more clarity rising behind his eyes, every vein filled with it, blindingly hot. 

He hummed, twisting his mouth to cut another jagged line in the flesh. One hand came up to grasp, without his permission, at the hand attached to the arm he fed from. It was limp, but beneath that Minho felt the surprising strength of it in the firmness of the palm against his thumb. The hand wrapped around his and held fast. 

“That’s enough,” the voice said, low and breathy. He almost recognized who it belonged to, but the idea remained beyond him, dancing past the veil of his consciousness. It was said with a tone that made Minho think the owner of the voice and of this arm felt like Minho, hot and wanting - he wasn’t inclined to stop. 

With eyes now closed more of his own will than from a lack of strength to open them, Minho licked his way up the arm. Its muscles flexed beneath his lips, blood thrumming delicious beneath the surface of the skin that he sucked hickeys into. 

He rose to his feet as he went higher, a pleased giddiness curling in his stomach as he noted how easy it was to move. It had never been this simple for him, as dedicated as he was to not taking from the unwilling. This energy was nothing like the reluctant and pained power he’d gained from forced feedings with Kibum, nor like the diluted near-impotence of the blood of animals or from transfusion packs. This blood was  _ his _ , taken gleefully and given willingly, imbued with emotions that pushed Minho further and further towards an edge he wasn’t sure existed. 

The flesh of the shoulder and neck was thick, muscle tightly woven by decades of physical training, and Minho delighted in the way he could feel it flex beneath his lips. The skin here was so thin it would only take the lightest brush of his teeth to tear, blood warming it by proximity to the surface. He wondered if the person he was feeding from was blushing. Their breath stuttered with every movement, Minho’s hand still grasped in theirs as blood continued to flow from the open wounds on their arm. He licked his lips, imagining the way it would drip from his fingers, the way he’d suck it off of their held hands like the juice left over from an eaten pomegranate. 

When Minho bit, it was a movement of sheer impulse, something between lust and hunger rising anew in him as the person’s head turned away from him, sharp jaw pressing against his cheek. He was taller than them, and his head tilted downwards, teeth working against their nape, not too close to the artery and not close enough. The person moaned, squeezing his hand tight, and could no longer keep quiet, sounds mingling with Minho’s own as he filled himself again with their ambrosia. He lost himself in the sensation, the way the liquid flowed against his teeth, the pulse of his savior pushing more and more into his waiting mouth. Their moans grew louder, deeper, and beyond his immediate awareness Minho felt them grabbing his free wrist and dragging their other hand up his arm. 

Soon they were tangled together, Minho sipping at them in lazy draws rather than frantic sucks, enjoying the flavor more fully. It was like nothing Minho had ever tasted before, spiced and sweet as mulled wine, warm and bright as the first fresh-squeezed juices of summer, surrounding him and drowning him within it. His knee slipped between theirs, and he let them press themselves against him, one strong arm around his neck and the other still wrapped in his own. Minho had yet to open his eyes, but he didn’t feel the need - he could feel everything like this, their frenzied heartbeat and the rushing heat of their blood rerouting to where he pressed his thigh against their half-formed erection, the pure want in their gasping breaths. 

“Minho,” they whispered in his ear, voice gone gravelly with how strained their moans had become, “Minho, I…” 

He scratched his free hand down their wide back, wanting nothing more than to draw more words from them. Minho felt a haziness overtake his mind at the sensation of their skin ripping slightly under their shirt, his nails sharp and quick enough to draw little lines of blood. With a moan of his own, he pressed his lips against the strong flesh of their neck again, sliding his lips down until he could latch his lips against their collarbone, enjoying the way the fabric against part of his lips was quickly dampened by the blood he drew. 

“You have to stop,” the voice murmured, hands gripping tight at his shoulders and attempting to push him off even as they rutted against each other. 

Minho’s lips separated from the skin with a wet pop, and he pouted, eyes fluttering open. The left arm of the person holding him was bruised in large blotches, and his gaze followed that path, up and up until he looked into their eyes. 

Jonghyun. 

Blood,  _ Jonghyun’s  _ blood, roared in Minho’s ears. His face was hot with it, as was Jonghyun’s, a flush high on the other vampire’s cheeks as he panted and met Minho’s eyes. A smoulder was present in them that Minho had never seen before, an arousal headier than he’d ever known.

They were in Jonghyun’s cafe, Minho now realized, and the afternoon light was dimmed by the tinted black windows, though it still cut a line across Jonghyun’s face. It was empty, chairs stacked in one corner, and Minho wondered with a worry in the back of his mind as to why the cafe was so frequently closing. 

Jonghyun was backed up against one of the tables scattered about the cafe, almost pushed up onto it, and Minho swallowed thickly, interest making his heartbeat race. He wanted, so much, to see Jonghyun sprawled out along the surface of it, shirt open and chest fully marked. 

Jonghyun’s lips parted, ready to say something again, and Minho surged forwards before he could, covering them with his own. It started off as frenzied as he felt, teeth clicking against Jonghyun’s and canines catching on the plushness of his bottom lip as he tried to fit them together at the right angle. Their noses brushed, and Jonghyun sucked in a sharp gasp against Minho’s skin before responding to the kiss, pushing back against him with equal fervor.

Jonghyun leaned back easily as Minho pressed more weight against his body, pressing his legs against the firmness of the table. Jonghyun moaned and panted whenever Minho’s lips left his to brush aimless paths along his cheeks and jawline, revisiting the bitemarks he’d left on his neck and sucking the final drops from the near-closed wounds. He brought his mouth back to Jonghyun’s, the taste of Jonghyun’s blood still fresh and sharp on his tongue, and gave Jonghyun a taste. 

“Fuck,” Jonghyun hissed, biting his tongue hard, nicking the corner of it and sending a sharp pain through Minho. It arched down his spine, electric, to join the already intense arousal buzzing through him. Minho lanced his hips against Jonghyun’s, a thrill racing through him to find Jonghyun just as erect as him, hot and firm against him. 

“I want more,” Minho breathed against Jonghyun’s skin, hands shifting to wrap around his waist and tug him so his back was against the table. Jonghyun scrambled to push his ass further up the table, placing himself steadily before his legs fell open and invited Minho to position himself between them. 

His thighs were thick and gave easily under Minho’s palms when he pressed his hands along them. Jonghyun hiccuped out barely-audible moans as Minho stroked along them, avoiding his straining erection as he did so. Minho wanted the heady weight of it on his tongue, teasing the tight entrance of his throat, but not as much as he wanted to bite bloody crescents into the soft flesh of his inner thighs. Minho brushed his knuckles against the clothed line of Jonghyun’s cock, aiming for his zipper, and Jonghyun writhed and jolted against the slight pressure. 

“Minho,” he gasped, lifting his hips and arching away when Minho made to pull down his jeans. The skin of his thighs, left exposed by the action, was untanned and rosy with the flush of blood that spread across his aroused body. Minho felt his mouth water, saliva making the slide of his tongue smooth along the lines where his muscles shifted and his briefs ended. Sparse hair thickened into trails that tempted Minho, but he paid them no mind, parting his lips further and running the tips of his teeth along Jonghyun’s skin. 

“I want to bite you,” he hissed into the skin, now glistening with sweat and Minho’s spit. 

Jonghyun didn’t reply, and Minho let his eyes slip closed again as his canines drew delicate paths along him. Avoiding the arteries, he made to bite down, absorbed in the way the smell and feeling of Jonghyun surrounded him. 

The pleasure ended as soon as he broke the skin, Jonghyun shuffling away from him as if struck. Minho looked up, confused, still halfway kneeling with his hands holding him up on the table. Jonghyun’s face was red, his lips glossed with spit and blood, but his eyes held a resolve that Minho hadn’t seen the first time their eyes met today. 

“Enough,” Jonghyun said, hands trembling as he sat up and tried to rebutton his jeans. “You drank more than enough.” 

Minho gulped, feeling the action smoothed by all the blood lining his throat. He wanted more. He wanted Jonghyun. Leaning forward, he bracketed Jonghyun against the table with his hands at either side of his waist, holding himself over him. “I want you,” he murmured helplessly. 

“You’re out of your mind from too much,” Jonghyun came back, turning his head to stare out the window. 

“It’s not enough.” Minho’s arms flexed as he lowered himself further, pressing his lips against the alluring mole framing Jonghyun’s collarbone. Jonghyun’s breath caught, and Minho felt his pulse speed back up, and then dizziness overtook him as Jonghyun gripped his shoulders with enough strength to shatter a human’s bones and flipped them over in a whirlwind of motion.

Jonghyun crouched over him, hair brushing Minho’s forehead and hands still clutching at him. His voice held all of the same strength, unrestrained and honed, as he said, “You will not feed.” 

If anything, being held down and denied only sent more heat rushing through Minho. Powerless and aroused to the point of pain by the show of Jonghyun’s true capability, he moaned, canting his hips up in the direction of Jonghyun’s. 

Jonghyun shook his head, one hand moving down to grip Minho’s hip and force it still. The action pained Jonghyun as much as Minho, if the barely restrained look in his eye and the way he made an aborted move to rut down onto Minho was anything to go by. Minho could feel his fingerprints pressing themselves into his skin as bruises, blue and purple, and his cock strained against his pants.

He felt delirious, he felt overheated and overwhelmed and full as much as he felt empty. He needed Jonghyun, around him and inside him and all over him, until they would never knew where one ended and the other began. 

When he opened his mouth to express as much, having gone limp under Jonghyun’s weight for the pleasure it gave him to do so, Jonghyun stopped him from speaking with his fingers gripping his chin. 

“You will not go any further today,” Jonghyun declared, breathing unevenly and fighting to make a full sentence. “You’ve almost died from lack of feeding, and now you’ve taken too much in too little time.” 

Minho nodded. If Jonghyun thought that, he’d agree; anything for Jonghyun, to keep Jonghyun on top of him and continue making him feel this delicious craze. 

Jonghyun’s fingers turned soft on his jaw, stroking along it and simply letting his eyes follow the motion as he continued, “You will stay at the cafe with me. There’s an extra room between my own and Jinki’s quarters. The way you act alone, never feeding, is too dangerous for your health, and I care about you. Do this for me.” 

Minho’s heart fluttered in his chest for entirely different reasons than it was doing only moments ago. “Yes,” he breathed out in agreement, “yes.” 

Jonghyun’s lips brushed his own then, rough with his own drying blood and soft with the emotion held behind the action. 

* * *

The incident, as Minho had come to call it in his own mind, was not spoken of again. He was pulled along and deposited into the spare quarters and Jonghyun had bade him a goodnight before disappearing. 

While they never spoke of it, thoughts of the encounter continued to fill Minho’s mind. Minho’s new quarters were large, and the bedroom was tucked away in the very back of the spacious interior, with three doors separating it from the main hallway. Shame curled in him as he curled his hand around himself night after night, thinking of the way Jonghyun had moaned and the heat of his thighs against his lips. He wanted it, genuinely, wanted to take in so much of Jonghyun that perhaps neither of them would be left afterwards, but he hadn’t gone about it the right way. Doubt that he would ever get the same experience again curbed the pleasure of his sessions.

He skirted around the cafe day after day and stayed in the quarters he had been given, exploring the hidden areas within it that he could call his own now. It was an outlandish thought, after decades spent wandering across continents - he would never have imagined that some other vampire would not only welcome him into their home, but allow him to call it his own as well. It made his heart soar to think of it, and to listen to Jonghyun’s crooning vocals leak through the gaps in the brick whenever he sang, a constant reminder of the kind heart that lay behind the actions. It was enough, he told himself, to be able to share Jonghyun’s space like this, though his heart twisted and ached and knew it wasn’t. 

Despite the general air of gratitude he held, awkwardness hung over him at every waking moment, weighing his actions and stalling his feet when he knew Jonghyun or Jinki were near. It seemed, to him, the circumstances he’d fallen into even worse than having walked in on the two older vampires - before, he could at least pretend he knew nothing. Now, every interaction seemed poised to be part of a larger storm brewing between him and Jonghyun. 

The same held true of tonight, and the atmosphere in the room made Minho think that storm was about to break open over the two of them. He sipped at the goblet of blood Jonghyun had provided, carefully silent and inspecting the grain of the wooden table between them. 

“I had an idea, the other night,” Jonghyun said, breaking the silence that had been sustained since the moment Minho had agreed to feed with Jonghyun that night. Minho looked up, one eyebrow cocked in curiosity. Jonghyun looked gilded by the firelight around them, golden and glowing as he imagined a god might. Minho had spent weeks avoiding looking at Jonghyun, and longer simply trying to stay away from him entirely, and though he hadn’t forgotten how gorgeous the other vampire was… His memories never lived up to the sight of Jonghyun himself. 

When Minho didn’t make any move to respond, Jonghyun made an expression that started as a smirk but slid almost immediately into a shy smile, saying, “I thought about going somewhere with you.”

Minho’s eyebrows slid up further. He leaned back in his seat a little, careful not to let the goblet splash on his shirt as he asked, “Somewhere?”

Jonghyun hummed. It was a beautiful sound to Minho’s ears, but then again, every sound he’d heard Jonghyun make was the same. The times they’d talked to each other had been few and far between for the last few weeks. Whenever they were, Minho couldn’t get enough; he was as thirsty for Jonghyun as he used to be for lifeblood. 

“It would be fun to go out, don’t you think? Enjoying a night on the town… Or something like that,” Jonghyun laughed. “There are quite a few nice places I know around here.”

A smile made its way onto Minho’s face without his permission. “That does sound interesting.” He knew what the attempt must be - a way for Jonghyun to smooth things over after the trainwreck Minho had made out of their last extended interaction, and nothing more. Nonetheless, he wanted to spend time with Jonghyun again, and since they were now, he didn’t want to stop anytime soon. 

“Well then,” Jonghyun chirped, throwing his head back to down the rest of his goblet. The way his throat worked around a swallow, muscles moving under the taut skin, made Minho’s hands shake. “Shall we?”

Minho nearly tripped over his own feet as he made to follow Jonghyun, feeling all the world like an overeager puppy being taken out for a walk as he did so. They slipped on their overcoats, and Minho would have helped Jonghyun with his own but for the lack of wanting to ruin yet another night between them. Hesitance kept him a safe distance from Jonghyun, even when Jonghyun looked over his shoulder and encouraged him with a genuine smile. 

Outside, a layer of powder dusted everything in sight, and Minho blinked in surprise. Despite the late hour, the world felt so bright with it, streetlights and moonbeams reflecting off of the snow and making it glisten as if it were daytime. Jonghyun held in a gasp, but turned to Minho with a smile nearly as bright, excited and wide-eyed from it all. 

“Where are we going?” Minho asked, mirroring his smile as he stepped closer to Jonghyun. The snow made him feel cheerful, and for all the way it made the buildings around it seem darker by contrast, the emptiness of the streets and the presence of Jonghyun beside him made his heart light. 

“You’ll see!” Jonghyun laughed, turning again to lead the way down abandoned alleys. He was striking, almost, despite not doing anything in particular; his broad back and narrow waist were only accentuated by the coat he wore, and the neon stoplights and signs made his normally dark hair gleam. 

His pace slowed steadily, and eventually they were walking side by side, only the sound of the slush crunching underneath their boots between them. Minho glanced at Jonghyun from the corner of his eye, looking at the way his nose sloped and his lips curved up with a soft, preoccupied smile. The awkwardness and doubt he felt still hung over him, a curtain separating him from Jonghyun if only in his mind, but Jonghyun seemed happy to be out with him. It made a boldness run through Minho’s veins, and he took a deep breath through his nose, eyes sliding back to the street before them before asking, “I’ve been wondering for a while - why is your cafe closed so often lately?”

Jonghyun didn’t answer for a few steps, and Minho looked back over to him more openly, ready to see his expression hard and unwilling to answer. Instead, Jonghyun looked at him almost conspiratorially, a mysterious twinkle in his eyes. 

“I’ve been having too much fun doing other things,” he said, each word delivered as if part of a secret. Minho wondered if there was something else laying between the lines. He didn’t want to pry too much, though, wary now of where Jonghyun’s boundaries may lie even more than he had been in the past. 

Silence filled the large spaces between their comments, but Minho didn’t find himself minding. They were comfortable and easy, smoothed by the idea of a destination that both would enjoy. After another block of it, Jonghyun made to take a left onto a bigger street, leading them up onto a bridge. He stopped, leaning against the black metal railings, and Minho was reminded of the second time they had met. Jonghyun was the same type of beautiful as then, only growing more mysterious and attractive as he seemed to open his heart to Minho. Minho felt trapped, ensnared as he ever was by Jonghyun, but unwilling to pull back and leave. He turned to Minho then, the ends of his hair almost brushing into his eyes as he blinked slowly, saying, “I’m thinking about writing a biography, or a journalistic piece of some kind.”

Minho stood, hands tucked in his pockets as he looked at Jonghyun, and felt his heart sway closer to him as his body held still. “Why? What about?”

Jonghyun grinned toothily, and Minho let his eyes slip along the jagged lines his teeth cut. “About vampires.”

It shocked a laugh out of Minho, and he stumbled forward with the force of it, ending up swinging his arms over the railing and looking down over the deserted highway below. He was so close to Jonghyun that he could feel the heat of his body beside him, and all he wanted was to lean closer in. “Why would you do that?”

“Well, it’s familiar as a topic, for obvious reasons,” Jonghyun explained with a joking lilt, bumping shoulders with Minho. “And even if I don’t publish it, it would be nice to be able to go back to it and remember writing it, a hundred or two hundred years from now.”

“That sounds nice,” Minho admitted. He had next to nothing besides his own memories, and time had warped some of them beyond his own recognition, imprinting them with feelings and tangling them up in other, more difficult emotions than he’d had while making them. He turned to face Jonghyun again. “Who would you write it about?”

There was another look in Jonghyun’s eyes at that, another secret lying behind them that Minho didn’t know yet. An open sort of desperation and desire, a hint of something else. “I haven’t decided,” he murmured, but everything about him said otherwise. 

Minho grinned at him, eyes almost closing from the force of it. 

And then, they snapped open again, caught on a movement in the distance. It was strange, as if a shadow had split off from the bank of darkness at the other end of the bridge, back the way they had come. It moved separately from everything around it, before stopping and seeming to almost meld back into the scenery. It was not human, that much he was sure of - it moved with a fluidity and grace seldom seen in humankind, an edge of restrained danger and power in the steps it made. 

“Jonghyun,” he said, nearly a whisper with how low his voice was. Jonghyun’s smile dropped, sensing the tone meant something more than he was saying. Nevertheless, Minho continued, “Are you sure we’re the only vampires in this city?”

Jonghyun’s expression hardened, and he murmured, almost reluctantly, “Not anymore.”

Without another word, he pushed off from the railing again, and began walking in the same direction, continuing on the path only he knew. Minho felt lost, watching him begin to step away, knowing there was no other option but for him to follow - as irregular as his feeding schedule was, he had become weak, despite the general uptick in his power since meeting Jonghyun. He bit his lip and began to walk as well, jogging slightly to catch up with Jonghyun. 

“It’s just ahead, and we’ll lock the doors behind us,” Jonghyun said quietly, beneath the sound of their footsteps against the snow and pavement. Minho nodded, not willing to say another word, and stuck so close to Jonghyun that their hands brushed with every step. 

The place they headed turned out, to what otherwise would’ve been Minho’s delight, to be an old theater. The art-deco corner sign proclaiming the name was still lit up despite the front door and ticket booth both being locked, and Minho smiled up at it, feeling the wariness of seeing danger begin to fade away. Jonghyun ducked around a corner, and then another one, into an alley only as wide as both of their shoulders were. Single-file, he led them through an unmarked iron door, shutting it firmly behind him after Minho followed. 

“This is the staff entrance,” Jonghyun explained, walking through the dark as if he knew this building like the back of his hand. Minho wondered if he did, if he had worked here or performed here once upon a time. He stopped beside a larger door, one hand resting loosely on the handle. “Through here is the stage. I really wanted to show you it.”

Minho grinned at him, touched that he was thought of that often - that there was something Jonghyun wanted to show him. Jonghyun took it as a signal, pulling the heavy door open and waving his hand for Minho to step through first. 

The curtain was closed, and the floor scuffed up and littered with props and ropes that had been abandoned there as the crews left for the night. He nearly tripped over one, feeling it catch around his ankle, but Jonghyun grabbed his bicep, pulling him upright. Minho felt the back of his neck heat at the touch, muffled as it was by the layers he wore. Jonghyun stepped ahead of him as he regained his balance, pulling a corner of the curtain back and gesturing for him to follow. Minho felt like he’d been doing that all night, but he couldn’t say he minded it, and he pulled the other side of the curtain open as he joined Jonghyun, expression open and full of awe as he looked out at the scene before him. 

Nothing was playing, not this far into the dead of the night, and no one was there for them. The silence felt almost palpable, a smooth and calm atmosphere filling the empty theater as he stared out at the rows of red seats. There were boxes perched above, and he craned his head back to look at them. Ornate gilded decoration covered every surface, and in the dim emergency lighting, everything looked molten. It took his breath away. The whole world could be in this moment, in the way he felt Jonghyun watching him absorb it all. 

No words were exchanged as they both stepped forward and sat at the edge of the stage, feet dangling as they looked out at the orchestral pit, and none needed to be. He breathed in the cold, stagnant air of the theater, feeling the charge of history behind it, and looked down at the way his and Jonghyun’s shoes looked next to each other. Like every other time he looked at them together, he decided that it was right. 

Jonghyun spoke after a while of swaying his feet back and forth, leaning back on his hands and looking up at the decorative ceiling pieces. Minho allowed himself to gaze at him then, knowing he would be unlikely to notice, as his lips moved to shape words. “It’s nice to go back in time, for a moment.”

Minho hummed, still watching his face. Jonghyun blinked a few times, eyelashes catching on the very end of his fringe. “What connection do you have to this place?” He wondered aloud, not expecting much of an answer - he felt that Jonghyun was the type to let some mysteries go unsolved, for the sake of it. 

But Jonghyun surprised him, as he often did, by smiling and answering with a wistful breathiness, “Barely any. I had a dream when I worked here, and that was all there was to it.”

“A dream?” Minho echoed, leaning over and poking Jonghyun’s ankle with his foot. “You can’t just say something that romantic and not explain yourself a little.” 

Jonghyun chuckled, shaking his head and kicking his foot back at Minho. “I wanted to stand on the stage like this, in front of a huge audience. I wanted to make them smile and be a star.”

The weight of his tone hit Minho deeply - they were slow, and it felt like the freedom he spoke with was hard-won, as if the dream had been one he struggled with for decades before. “But you didn’t,” Minho concluded, keeping his tone soft and wondering. 

“It’s enough that I have my own stage,” Jonghyun admitted. “I can make my own rules there, and perform the way I like.” With a breathy laugh, he continued, “I don’t think a vampire can do daytime shows, anyways.”

Minho leaned forwards, crossing his arms and putting them on his knees. That was certainly a limitation of anything they dealt with - being a vampire. He asked into the dark golden light of the theater, “Do you think your dream came true, then?”

“Yeah, I do,” Jonghyun said, and Minho looked over to see the contentment softening the corners of his eyes. Jonghyun was quiet for another moment, before his eyes met Minho’s and he asked, “What about you?”

Minho looked away, down to where his arms were crossed, where his long fingers fiddled with a loose thread on his coat sleeve. In this empty theater, surrounded by the ghosts of shows and performances and feelings innumerable, it felt easy to put his heart on display, sharing it like one would a particularly rousing play. “I did have a dream - still do. Kind of.”

Jonghyun hummed, kicking his legs a few more times. Minho thought it was cute, how restless he was, as if he wanted to run somewhere at the speed of his thoughts. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

It made Minho feel shy, more so than he’d been the entire time he’d known Jonghyun. But something in him wanted to show more of his heart, to bare his soul before Jonghyun and let the other man decide what he would do with it. The thrill of imagining that level of openness spurred on his answer. He stared at Jonghyun again, sidelong and slow, and said carefully, “Love. To be loved. It’s always been that.”

“Always?” Jonghyun sounded enthralled. Minho knew he was a romantic, and maybe it suited them both to be drawn together, birds of a feather circling each other in an endless courtship.

Minho hummed. “Even when I was human. Love made me too reckless then, though.” There was hesitancy in those words, things he knew he wanted to tell Jonghyun but simply wasn’t ready to push past his teeth. Jonghyun must’ve heard it in his tone, because he smiled soft and slow, understanding, and brushed his fingers against Minho’s with a surety he didn’t expect. Then he was leaning towards Minho, eyes flitting around his face as if he was committing his features to memory. They were so close Minho could see the flecks of light in his deep eyes, like the very furthest stars in the sky, and the way his paper-thin eyelids slipped shut when he pressed their lips together. 

The kiss was different from the frantic ones they’d shared that day in Jonghyun’s cafe. It had none of the same urgency, none of the delirious haze Minho had fallen under and influenced Jonghyun into. He revelled in the slow, chaste movement of their lips against each other, and the way it contrasted that memory. Minho let his fingers slip along Jonghyun’s as the kiss continued, both tilting their heads and bumping noses as they tried to find an angle that would let them kiss without their teeth clacking together and ripping their skin open. 

And the memory of  _ that,  _ Jonghyun’s lips candied with blood and spit, had Minho sighing and opening his mouth to Jonghyun, letting the other dip his tongue in and run it careful against the points of his teeth. The heat of it built, slowly, as seconds turned into minutes and neither seemed willing for it to stop; the intimacy of such a slow kiss, exploratory and deep, twisted and spun out into something more as it went on and on. 

Minho surged forwards as Jonghyun pulled back to breathe, and Jonghyun did the same, kissing him with a stronger passion that ended with Jonghyun’s hands on his shoulders, coaxing him back onto the stage. Jonghyun shifted and straddled him as soon as he did, his warm weight settling atop Minho as he sat on his torso, pressing his back further into the cold hardness of the hardwood beneath him. 

Jonghyun looked beautiful from that angle, staring down at Minho with feelings in his eyes that Minho couldn’t bear to read into. The emergency lighting was blocked by his head, creating a halo of dim orange around his hair. He didn’t want to hope too much, lose himself in his own one-sided romanticisms as Jonghyun’s careened off in an entirely separate direction, but the way Jonghyun looked at him made him almost helpless to. 

His hands went up from where he’d had them laying uselessly, up Jonghyun’s thick and firm thighs until he was holding his waist. It was narrow and muscled, and if Minho stretched his fingers, he could almost feel them touch together across the small of Jonghyun’s back. Minho’s mouth went dry. 

Jonghyun swooped down again, covering Minho’s lips with his own and arching into Minho’s touch with a twist of his spine that made their chests brush together. When he finally pulled back, breathless and warm, he murmured, “Are you still feeling reckless?”

Minho wanted so badly it hurt, but he shook his head with a final brush of his lips against Jonghyun’s. “Not reckless enough to do this on a stage,” he said, fond. 

Jonghyun laughed at that, a huff of it against Minho’s lips, and propped himself up over Minho with his hands on either side of Minho’s head. “That’s not a no,” he teased, “Not really.”

He squeezed Jonghyun’s waist, reveling in the way it made him squirm against Minho. “What are you trying to get us to do, you exhibitionist?” He shot back, smile blooming on his face. 

“It’s not exhibitionism if we’re the only ones here,” Jonghyun whispered, leaning back in. Minho’s eyes caught on the way his biceps bulged and flexed as he did so, his strength restrained to give Minho only the lightest of pecks. He lingered against Minho’s lips, again, as if he couldn’t help himself from staying as close as possible, and said, “Let’s leave before we get caught by a cleaning crew.”

Minho’s previous worries, everything that kept his hands to himself and his instincts wary, seemed to vanish as they made their way back out of the theater and onto the street. He pulled Jonghyun in close, smiling at the way Jonghyun willingly let himself be fitted against Minho’s side, and let their shared body heat keep him warm as they headed back to the cafe. 

Underneath the simmering energy of their make-out and the swooping joy in his heart at the idea that Jonghyun wanted to kiss him and more, there was a niggling feeling digging at the back of his mind. Minho wondered as they turned the final corner before the cafe and Jonghyun searched in his coat pockets for the store key if, perhaps, he was forgetting something important. 

* * *

The cafe reopened to little fanfare, Jonghyun demanding with a teasing smirk that if he was going to be a member of his coven, he would have to learn to pull his own weight. Minho donned the black apron thrust at him with a sigh, although the smile didn’t leave his lips when Jonghyun took the initiative to tie it for him, knuckles brushing his waist and his abs as he looped a knot together. 

It seemed a little too mundane to work at a cafe, after everything, during everything, but Minho went along with it - the idea of a humane routine was appealing, somehow. And there was no more chance of him missing Jonghyun perform, even on the days Jinki got bored and insisted he should work behind the counter instead. It was something more of a hobby, he figured, than a real job as a human would have. And maybe that was what was good about it, that was what gave it a sense of romance for him. 

Minho let that kind of thought drift through his mind as he watched Jonghyun sway to the instrumental of tonight’s set, warm and gentle. The almost private smile on his face as he let the music flow through him was nothing new, though Minho found himself getting lost in it as much as he had the first time he saw it. It was distracting, so much so that he almost missed it when someone sat at the raised bar and cleared their throat multiple times, trying to attract his attention. 

“Excuse me!” They finally said, voice a light alto that made the back of Minho’s mind twitch with a memory. He blinked and put a closed-mouth smile back on, careful to tuck his canine teeth behind his lips, turning back towards the patron. The smile didn’t last, then, his expression dropping as he stared down at the person sitting at the stool. 

Lee Taemin. 

It had to be, his face recognizable immediately to Minho. He grinned up at Minho, expectant, blinking every few seconds like he couldn’t help it. Minho felt something drop in his heart, light and heavy at the same time, and backed up slightly. Lee Taemin was younger than him, less experienced, but Minho knew him, knew there could be no good reason for Kibum’s right hand to be sitting in front of him after decades without contact. 

He had to keep himself under control, but he couldn’t help the sweat he already felt beading up at his temples. Taemin simply waited, looking at Minho with the same face he’d always had, eyes deeper and darker with time. He laced his fingers on the table, as if to show Minho he wasn’t holding anything but his own presence here. Minho’s mouth was too dry. He wished things between him and Jinki weren’t still rocky, and that Jinki would allow them to work together instead of disappearing into his own quarters whenever Minho showed up to take over for him. Jinki was a wildcard to him, but he was strong, he was safe; safer than Taemin, anyways, who told Minho once with a casual tone that he wouldn’t mind bleeding a vampire dry if the blood was good enough. 

The music stopped, after a minute, and Minho heard over the roaring of his ears Jonghyun announcing for everyone to please excuse him for ending early. Minho couldn’t tear his eyes away from Taemin’s long enough to glance at Jonghyun, confused as he was that Jonghyun was stopping before his set finished. He’d never done that, and the break from familiarity jarred Minho as much as Taemin himself was. 

“Not going to say hello?” Taemin finally asked, humming thoughtfully before smiling again. “I wanted to say hi to you, though.” He unwound his hands from around each other, tapped his fingers against the solid wood of the table. The motion was full of the kind of understated power and grace Taemin had come to embody by the time Minho had left Kibum’s domain, and he wouldn’t have expected anything less than that. “Would you at least make me a drink? I guess it’s rude to treat someone you know as an employee, though.”

Jonghyun was behind Taemin then, concerned as he walked purposefully towards them both. His expression cleared when he reached the bar and turned his head to see Taemin, though, and it puzzled Minho. What was more confusing was when Jonghyun smiled beatifically and exclaimed, “Oh, it’s you!”, pulling Taemin into a fond headlock and wiggling them both a few times. 

“You know him?” Minho asked, incredulous, barely able to get the words past his lips. 

Jonghyun turned back to him and smiled, still with a concerned edge to his eyes as he said, “We just met a couple weeks ago. I thought you’d left town already, Taemin!”

“I couldn’t keep myself away, I was just a little worried,” Taemin grinned, patting the seat beside him. “Let’s make Minho serve us food, he’ll probably do it if you ask.”

Minho leaned forwards, nearly overcome with how confused he was, and placed his own hands on the table, pressing his weight hard against them. The fear was fading away the longer he stood in Taemin’s proximity - Taemin had never been violent to him, had always respected how he felt. Besides, the glint in his eyes was more mischievous than malicious. “Can someone please explain to me what’s going on before I freak out?” He asked, anyways, his heart still racing in his chest no matter how he fought it down. 

“I came over here because I was concerned when I felt your energy change, but it’s just this guy…” Jonghyun mumbled, patting Taemin’s shoulder with the arm he still had draped over his neck. “He led me to you when you were passed out at the pier. It’s only thanks to him that I found you at all.”

That knowledge didn’t make Minho feel any better, didn’t clear up a single thing about what was going on despite the logical sense it made. He turned his head towards Taemin, whose smile was slowly gaining a guilty edge to it. “I’ve kind of been, uh, following you around for a few decades.”

The metaphorical record player of Minho’s thoughts scratched and stuttered to a stop, a slight cold overcoming him. He remembered, all of a sudden, the figure he’d seen darting around and following them when Jonghyun and himself had went out together. It must’ve been Taemin, and that knowledge did little to assuage the discomfort of it, of someone else spying on his private memories. 

“Why,” he said, more of a demand than a question. He knew why, already, somewhere within him - Kibum had asked. But the reason why Kibum would’ve asked would make all the difference from here. 

Taemin sighed, smile finally dropping. He blinked a few more times, a typical and familiar nervous tic, as he answered, “Kibum was worried about you more than I was, when you took off. He wanted someone to make sure you were safe, that you would take care of yourself after you left alone, but he knew you wouldn’t be… receptive to it if he followed you. I had to promise him I wouldn’t reveal myself, but I already went a little off script when I revealed myself to Jonghyun, so… I figured, why not.”

Minho swallowed, closing his eyes, processing that. He couldn’t deny it made him a little happy that Kibum cared about him that much, and would go about proving it in a way that respected how he had felt then, but. “Are you still going to shadow me?” He had to know this, at least. 

With a snort, Taemin admitted, “No. You have a coven now, obviously. Kibum will realize there’s nothing to worry over anymore, especially if he hears it from me.” Jonghyun’s expression kept going a little strange, and Minho thought perhaps he should pay a little attention to that, but he ignored it - relief was flooding through him, strong and swift. As much as he secretly enjoyed the idea of Kibum worrying over him in private, he couldn’t enjoy the way Taemin followed him around for decades, through the ups and downs and near-deaths without a single word. His life might be his own, fully and entirely, now that he could sever this lasting connection.

Taemin must’ve read it on his face, because he continued, hastily, “I’m sure Kibum will want to come out and see for himself, though, so… Don’t look too satisfied.” 

“The main reason you shouldn’t be satisfied is because I get all the credit for this,” Jonghyun teased, having since settled himself in a seat next to Taemin’s, looking as pleased as anything. “It’s  _ my  _ coven, after all, everyone. And maybe you should stay a while, Taemin, I’m sure you’ve had a hard time...”

Taemin agreed easily, almost unthinkingly, although his eyes went to Minho with a slightly wary tilt to their corners, and he ended up saying that he’d simply stay nearby and come visit again. Minho couldn’t deny the relief he felt seeing Taemin’s slight shoulders duck out of the cafe for the night. 

Jonghyun stuck close to him as he locked the door behind Taemin, claiming that he was closing early for the sake of Minho’s wellbeing before shadowing him down the hallway. Minho had half a mind to quip that he was acting like a typical vampire, looming behind him even as he turned to enter his own quarters, but the look in Jonghyun’s eyes was soft and near-worried. Minho bit his cheek to stop himself from smiling at the care Jonghyun gave him, and shut the door he had just pulled open. 

“Something on your mind?” He asked, hushed, as though the walls had ears to listen. He supposed Jinki would, if he hadn’t made himself scarce in his own corner of the building or vanished out into the city. 

Jonghyun looked up at him, a little too close to be anything between friends. “You are,” he said back, easily. The dimness of the hallway created extra shadows on his face, in his eyes, shadows where feelings and questions Minho didn’t know how to respond to were lurking. Jonghyun opened his mouth, sighed, and then continued, “About today…” before trailing off, as if he didn’t know how to address it. 

“Sorry about… that,” Minho replied, gesturing with one hand. He brushed it against Jonghyun’s arm inadvertently, and made no effort to lift it off him afterwards, connecting them through that point of warmth. “I never expected any of this to happen.”

“Neither did I.” Jonghyun’s voice was full of humor, but a warning was in his gaze when he asked, “Are there any other unexpected surprises you’re going to give me?”

“If Taemin doesn’t come back tomorrow, even though he promised to, there’s one,” Minho joked back, slowly leaning into Jonghyun for no reason other than that he wanted to. It felt nice, to do something like that, knowing he wouldn’t be denied. Jonghyun’s forehead came to lay on his shoulder, as if he, too, was pulled in by the same idea. “If I never see Kibum’s face around this cafe, there’s two.” 

Jonghyun’s head twitched, only the slightest bit, against Minho’s shoulder when he mentioned Kibum’s name. He puffed out a laugh, then, that warmed Minho’s skin even through the thick fabric of his sweater. “And who knows how many more after that,” he murmured. He pulled back, then, just enough to meet Minho’s eyes, twinkling with some new idea. “It’s late. Are you going to send me off with a good-morning kiss?”

“Maybe I should do more than just that,” Minho said against Jonghyun’s lips, warm and wanting on his, and then drew away to open the door to his quarters again. Jonghyun crowded up against his back as he did so, and the undercurrent of uncertainty and conflict that Minho felt whenever Taemin or Kibum were mentioned fell away as they tumbled into the room. He pushed the guilt of not being transparent about them with Jonghyun to the bottom of his mind, then. 

* * *

_ Minho came back to himself slowly, in waves, the endless and agonizing darkness around him receding until it was nothing at all. He was, somehow, surprisingly, alive. The realization did little to make him rejoice, as pain lanced its way through his bones and his torso.  _

_ “You haven’t fed enough yet,” a voice murmured, one that Minho almost recognized. “Come on, now, drink.” And something lukewarm was pressed to his lips, something that fleshy and wet with a liquid hot as the inside of his mouth. Minho, helpless to do anything but, pushed himself closer into it and sucked at it.  _

_ It felt nearly second-nature, although he couldn’t remember ever eating like this before. His body knew how to do it, and Minho figured that was all he needed for the moment, as the pain curling around every part of him slowly faded away into the same darkness he’d just left.  _

_ His eyes opened to see what it was: a body, lain prone besides him, their hand held in the hand of another person and up to Minho’s waiting mouth. Their wrist was sliced open, pink muscle exposed and sucked clean of any blood that would have rushed to the wound. He knew instantly that he had been the one to do that: drinking the lifeblood of another person unknowingly. He drew back, bile rising in his throat, and scrambled to put distance between himself and the stranger. _

_ “It’s fine to be scared now, but you’ll have to get used to it,” the voice said rather dryly. Minho turned. He remembered the person the voice belonged to, a face grown familiar through how odd it was, how much they stuck out to him and made an impression. They’d first met at a funeral, where Minho had seen them lurking at the corners of the procession, and wondered who the sharp-eyed individual had been to the person they were gathered for. The next time was only days later, at a bar Minho was drinking himself into a stupor at, and the person had slid into the seat to Minho’s left and ordered him a glass of water. And then the next, at the same bar, winding their hands around Minho’s waist and pulling them to dance flush against each other, a slow swaying series of steps accompanied by a sleepy piano piece.  _

_ They had leaned in and whispered in Minho’s ear, then, asking if he would like to become happy, if he would like to never be left alone again. He had said yes, gasping with the raw, desperate desire curling in his bones. And now, they were here.  _

_ He reared back further, almost falling onto the floor with the force of it. He couldn’t remember any of the night after that moment. What had he done? What had this stranger with the sharp eyes and bittersweet smile done? _

_ “Oh, don’t look that shocked,” the voice said archly. Teasing him, as if they had a right to that. Minho blinked, and his eyes felt full of sand, dry and pained. “You know, I think I forgot to introduce myself back at the bar. I’m Kibum.”  _

_ “What are you?” Minho asked, voice hoarse and heavy in his mouth. His tongue scraped strangely against his teeth when he spoke, and - oh God, his teeth. They were sharp and long and not at all his. “What am  _ I _ ?” He pressed, panicking.  _

_ “Vampires,” Kibum said, as if he was saying that the sky was blue, as if it should have been obvious sooner. “Now, drink more,” he offered the arm of the strange person laying before Minho again, hand loosely grasping the human’s limp one. “If you don’t, you will hurt more in the long run.”  _

_ “Is he… Is he dead?” His voice was so horrified that he couldn’t make sense of it, it didn’t sound like his, and nothing about his body felt like his either. He was unwieldy as he got to his feet, staggering to one side in an effort to balance himself. He couldn’t stay sitting, he had to move, he had to run. Away from this nightmare. Kibum nodded, and Minho choked out, “You killed him, didn’t you?” _

_ “On accident. Usually I don’t go that far, but it’s your first night. We have to make sure you have an easy go of it, no one running away. Speaking of. Don’t try and run, okay? I don’t want to play some game wherein you’re my prey. We already played that one,” Kibum joked, smile going wide and toothy, and Minho wondered if his own teeth were that horrifying to look at.  _

_ It was so dark out, Minho noticed as he whipped his head around, unheeding of Kibum’s words against running as he looked for a way to escape. They were far, far from where he knew the bar was, somewhere out in the woods. The moon was dark; either that, or simply hiding behind trees or clouds. No one would find him out here. Minho felt sweat trickle like ice down his neck. Nowhere for him to go to find anyone, either.  _

_ Kibum was pressing him to feed again, to suck the blood out of this poor boy’s body. “No,” he choked out. “I won’t do it. I won’t - kill and drink blood. And you, you shouldn’t do that either, it’s…” He broke off, shaking his head and stumbling back a few more steps.  _

_ “What?” Kibum scoffed, dropping the hand of the body and letting it fall with a dull thud onto the floor. “I know you’re freshly turned, and you still think of yourself as a human, but please try to have an open mind.”  _

_ “Killing people is… It’s wrong,” Minho whispered, turning his head to one side, unwilling to look at Kibum standing above the prone form of this person any longer.  _

_ “And what would you have me do instead of killing people? Should I go become a fucking rockstar or something?” Kibum crowed. “No, Minho, I’m not going to do that. I’m a vampire.  _ We  _ are vampires. We kill people. We drink blood.” He stepped forwards, following Minho across the small distance he’d made between them, and continued, “You will realize this one day, if you don’t today.”  _

_ “I won’t,” Minho gasped, even as Kibum pressed his own wrist to his teeth and sliced a jagged path against the flesh, letting blood gush from it. His eyes snapped up at the sound of Kibum’s muted hiss of pain, and followed the way the blood dripped down from his elbow and onto the dirt.  _

_ “I won’t change,” he muttered, even though the iron tang of the smell of blood made his taste buds want to sing, made his nostrils flare.  _

_ “I will never…” Even as Kibum pressed his other hand to the back of his neck and his wrist to Minho’s lips, Minho’s words muffled against the warmth of his skin until he quieted, eyes slipping shut, and drank.  _

* * *

They’d done this a few times before, fucking around in either of their rooms, since Minho had gotten over his embarrassments and Jonghyun had invited him in more and more, for no other reason than to talk to him about anything and everything after his nightly sets. The subject of Jinki never came up, and Minho knew from the occasional bruise on Jonghyun’s neck and hips that they still did the same things they had always done, but. Minho felt grateful enough to be added to Jonghyun’s life in this way, without any interference from anyone else. 

What they did those nights always left Minho thirsty for more, the way they frotted against each other on Jonghyun’s couches with their lips still wet from the blood they shared together. But Jonghyun always slowed him down with soothing hands along his sides, kisses pressed against his pulse points, whispering to him that it would soon be sunrise and he should go back to his quarters and sleep. Minho wasn’t ever disappointed by it, eager for the endless opportunities to memorize the way Jonghyun’s muscles were woven together across his chest, the way his breath hitched when Minho would dip his head and run his teeth along the prominent veins of his hands. 

But this time felt somehow different from the few weeks of foreplay that came before it - Jonghyun had invited him up as soon as his set was done, jittery and excitable to the point that he nearly spilled the blood he poured into their goblets before gulping it all down in a single shot. The intake no longer seemed to tip him into intoxication as much as it did when Minho first met him, but it mattered little, as Jonghyun looked at him with eyes that were just as uninhibited and wild at the edges as they were when he was edging on drunk. He set his own goblet down and took Minho’s out of his hand with a soft, coaxing touch. He then wrapped his fingers, light and gentle, around Minho’s wrist, tugging him until Minho sat atop him. 

The gentle touches gave way to more heated gropes as they kissed, Minho laying his whole weight on Jonghyun just to feel him writhe beneath him. “Minho—Min—ah,” Jonghyun cut off, chest heaving as Minho continued to scratch paths along his toned shoulder blades.

“What do you want,” he murmured into Jonghyun’s throat, kissing along the bulge of his jugular. He used just a little bit of teeth, pin-pricking the skin gently. Jonghyun whined, desperately pushing at Minho’s shoulders, trying to get him to do something. 

Minho wouldn’t go along with Jonghyun’s lead that easily, though, he decided - something about tonight made him want to tease, made him want to take his time getting Jonghyun hot for him. Smiling against Jonghyun’s neck at the thought, Minho drifted his hands to the front of his shirt. It was a struggle to unbutton it fully with Jonghyun squirming so much; he abandoned it with a few buttons intact and shoved his hands inside, impatient to feel the heated skin waiting there. 

“Minho,” Jonghyun tried again, arching into the touch of Minho’s hands on his sides, into Minho’s teeth scraping down his neck. Minho felt addicted to drawing out moans of his own name, Jonghyun’s voice dipping octaves deeper from arousal and radiating through him. “ _ Minho. _ ” 

He was interrupted from nipping a path across Jonghyun’s collarbones when Jonghyun forced his chin up with a firm grasp and kissed him deeply. Jonghyun held Minho’s chin in place almost hard enough to bruise, running his tongue along Minho’s teeth and humming as he turned it on Minho, having his way with his mouth. Jonghyun’s breath hitched as Minho’s hands slid down to the small of his back, revelling at the narrow firmness of it and pulling him to grind against Minho. 

“Shit,” Jonghyun gasped, pulling away from the kiss. He lost himself for a moment, pleasure flooding him with heat as their clothed erections rubbed together. “Minho, I...,” he breathed, ducking his head into the junction between Minho’s neck and shoulder, gasping out hot air against his chest. 

“Yeah,” Minho answered distractedly, mindlessly, lost in the heat of Jonghyun’s back beneath his hands as he rutted up against him. No matter how many times he got to do this, it was still a marvel to him - that Jonghyun would be into him to this extent, that he would get to do this with him. Minho trailed his hands along Jonghyun’s sides, feeling the way his ribcage stuttered with every breath he sucked in. 

“I’m—” Jonghyun bit just beneath his ear, barely hard enough to break skin, and Minho hissed. “I want you. Be reckless with me.”

Minho felt himself snap, just a little, threading one hand gently into Jonghyun’s hair before yanking his head back, following its path with his mouth. He bit and tugged at Jonghyun’s lips until the other opened them in a groan. 

Jonghyun’s lips tasted like iron, and Minho’s eyes fluttered, unable to stay open or shut as Jonghyun pierced his tongue with his teeth. He would’ve asked if Jonghyun would let him bite, but that was as good as saying yes - he felt Jonghyun lick the blood up, delirious. He moaned into the kiss, so turned on it almost hurt, feeling heat build in the negligible space between them. 

Jonghyun pulled away again with a gasp, hand snaking around Minho’s neck to push his head down and against his throat. “T-take it,” he stumbled over the words, and Minho couldn’t help the way his dick throbbed at the needy tone of his demand, “bite me.”

Minho moaned in response, but - he paused. They were members of the same coven now, sure, but biting him for something other than a life-or-death situation was akin to a declaration, becoming each other’s blood. Did Jonghyun really want that? Minho pulled back as much as he could with Jonghyun’s fingers knotted firmly in his hair, searching the other’s eyes for a long moment. Jonghyun’s gaze was clear, unwavering despite the drunken way he’d sucked on Minho’s tongue moments before. Love and lust burned through his eyes in equal measure, and Minho’s heart beat in his throat at the sight. He surged forward, cupping Jonghyun’s jaw with his hands and kissed him, suddenly feeling a need to go deeper, slower. 

It was a different kiss from any they’ve had before, intense from the feelings thrumming through it. As they parted, panting into each other’s mouths, Minho felt overwhelmed with an urge to cry, just a little. It dawned upon him then - he loved Jonghyun, truly, and it flowed through him with the sudden force of a raging typhoon, a realization that had lurked inside him until this moment. It felt like too much to contain, like his heart wouldn’t be able to hold all his feelings if they kept going. He didn’t want to stop. 

“I want to take my time with you,” Minho muttered when he caught his breath, pushing Jonghyun down further onto the lounge sofa until he laid against it. He settled himself between the legs that immediately spread for him. “I want everyone to know who you chose to be yours.” He ran a hand down his chest, slowly, until it met his crotch. Minho gave the bulge of his erection a teasing squeeze before tugging down the zipper. “I want everyone to know you want me.” 

Jonghyun’s eyes were hazy and smouldering as he stared up at him. “Then mark me up, already, Minho.” And that was an honor - that Jonghyun would even let him do this again, after the mess Minho had made last time. 

He was so  _ beautiful _ , Minho thought, as he ran one hand up Jonghyun’s exposed, sculpted torso and pushed the other down into his pants. Minho continued to tease, brushing his knuckles too lightly for satisfaction against Jonghyun’s cock, the heat of it radiating through his briefs. Jonghyun whined again, his whole body arching up towards Minho. 

Minho leaned back down to meet Jonghyun, catching his lips in a chaste kiss that sat out of place against the heated mood between them. It was soon over, Minho dragging his lips down Jonghyun’s jawline and towards the thrum of his pulse beneath his ear. 

“Are you ready?” He murmured into Jonghyun’s ear. Jonghyun moaned deep and quiet in response, and Minho slipped his hand into his boxers, grabbing Jonghyun’s cock as he pierced his neck with his canines. Jonghyun gasped and dug his fingers into Minho’s shoulders, and the sweet-iron-tang of his blood seeped into Minho’s mouth. He drank in the taste eagerly, stroking Jonghyun through it, slow in his tight fist, a different kind of teasing as he denied Jonghyun of anything fast enough for a climax. 

Jonghyun began to buck his hips back into Minho’s strokes after a short moment, and Minho pulled himself away entirely with a final kiss against his neck. The mark he’d left was dark and already bruising, but not deep; the largest smear of blood on Jonghyun’s neck was from the kiss Minho left behind to soothe the sting of it. He wanted to leave more beside it, until Jonghyun’s whole body was covered in traces of Minho. 

The look on Jonghyun’s face was blissful and touched out, even though they’d barely started. “Feels so good,” he mumbled at Minho’s concerned glance, and Minho lost himself in the slight part of his plush lips even as he busied his hands removing the rest of both their clothes. Jonghyun’s cherry-red hair fell around his face, fiery when it caught the warm light of the oil lamps around the room. It was the same perfect shade as the smear on his neck, and the overwhelming feeling of being in love with him threatened to tear Minho’s composure apart. 

He realized he had just been staring down at Jonghyun like a lovesick idiot after Jonghyun pointedly nudged him with one calf curled behind his knees, and Minho fell forward, hiding a grin in the crook of Jonghyun’s neck. 

The warm smile quickly dissolved back into searing kisses as Minho made his way down Jonghyun’s torso, spurred on by the gasps he tore from Jonghyun with every press of his lips. 

“Can I fuck you?” Minho mumbled against the skin above Jonghyun’s navel, hands gently gripping the backs of his thighs. His lips were just a brush from the trail of hair that Minho knew would lead to his cock, but he avoided it, waiting for Jonghyun’s response. 

He couldn’t have missed Jonghyun’s fond smile as the other replied, “You already have the rest of me. Of course you can.” Minho mirrored that smile, hiding it in the soft firmness of Jonghyun’s stomach as he waited for the fireworks going off in his chest to die down. 

Minho pressed one kiss to the trail of hair leading towards Jonghyun’s navel before pulling Jonghyun’s legs up a little, folding the other man forward in his arms. He gently scraped his nails along one leg, just enough to tease, as he leaned in and sucked a hickey into the supple skin of his thigh. Jonghyun twitched, spine twisting, and Minho hummed, biting a path up and down. Minho was careful not to draw blood this time—he thought he’d get truly drunk off any more, a cocktail too sweet and addictive—but he still teased along Jonghyun’s veins with the tip of his canines. 

Jonghyun whined at the feeling of Minho’s teeth on him again and wrapped his other leg around Minho’s shoulders, bracketing his head. It was Minho’s cue to turn, pressing his mouth to Jonghyun’s other thigh and giving it the attention it deserved. Minho slowly blinked open his eyes to glance down at Jonghyun, pleased to see his pretty lips open in a silent moan, his nose scrunched up as his eyebrows drew together. He pressed bruising bitemarks into Jonghyun’s thighs, stroking his fingers in maddeningly slow circles towards his ass while the other hand held his waist, keeping him in place as Jonghyun started squirming again.

At the first brush of fingers against Jonghyun’s hole, warm and soft even beneath the last layer of clothing between it and his finger, he gasped and unhooked his ankles from around Minho’s neck. “L-lube,” he stuttered out, like he just remembered it, trying not to push back into Minho’s touch. “No further unless you brought—”

Minho leaned down, pecking Jonghyun’s lips. “In my coat pocket.” He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d been hopeful for a while, ever since Jonghyun had admitted to him over too many shared goblets and too tipsy an atmosphere that he wanted more, eventually. 

“Then  _ go get it, _ ” Jonghyun urged, pushing him back with one hand even as Minho tried to kiss him again. 

* * *

After Minho rubbed down Jonghyun’s thighs and neck with disinfectant and cleaned the rest of him up with a damp towel, Jonghyun gathered him up in his arms. The afterglow clung to Jonghyun longer, leaving him pliant and giggly and eager for attention. Minho humored him, snuggling into his embrace and pressing kiss after chaste kiss to his cheeks, his nose, everywhere. 

The bruises looked nice on his skin, marks of red and dark brown off-setting his usual skin tone and gleaming in the low light of his quarters. Minho brushed kisses against those, too, careful not to press hard enough to hurt. Pride at having been allowed to leave them there welled up inside him. Jonghyun hummed pleasantly, and against his ear, Minho asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I wish we would’ve done all that here in our bed, I’m going to be so sore when I perform tomorrow night,” Jonghyun mumbled, a dreamy smile on his lips as he tilted his face closer, eyelashes brushing both his cheeks and Minho’s. His voice had gone back to its higher, softer timbre, but it was more gravelly than usual. Minho liked it. He also liked how Jonghyun said  _ our _ \- maybe it was just a slip of the tongue, but Minho’s heart fluttered at what more it could be for them in the future. And he liked that too, the idea of a future he could look forward to. “But it’s kind of cute that you couldn’t wait.” 

“Can’t you take a day off?” Minho obliged Jonghyun’s obvious but still unspoken wants, kissing him again. He wouldn’t mention that it wasn’t only Minho who wouldn’t keep it in his pants long enough to relocate from the couch.

“I don’t really mind,” Jonghyun sighed, now nuzzling his nose into the crook of Minho’s neck. “I’m going to like feeling you. I like you.”

Minho smiled into Jonghyun’s hair, feeling the fresh bite in his neck throb in time with his heartbeat. He’d let Jonghyun give it to him in the midst of things, both of them so overwhelmed with heat that he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to be owned by Jonghyun in that way. More than the feeling of Jonghyun’s teeth parting his flesh or his tongue laving across the fresh bite marks, the meaning of the action was what had turned him on. “I like you too.”

“I forgot, I had a question I kept meaning to ask,” Jonghyun mumbled against Minho’s skin, fingers drawing nonsensical patterns against his chest. The warmth of his breath on Minho’s collarbones just made him want to hold Jonghyun tight, so he did, and Jonghyun huffed out a quiet laugh before continuing, “When were you turned? We’ve never talked about it… but, I’m curious about you.” 

Minho thought for a moment. For all that the circumstances of his turning traumatized him, continued to hurt him, he didn’t think about it more than he had to. The actual facts of it were old and faded now, lost under the imprint of so many emotions impressed on it over time. “Some two hundred years ago, I believe.”

“Will you tell me about it, sometime?” Jonghyun asked, soft, unimposing. Minho nodded, nose tucking into Jonghyun’s hair, breathing in the lemongrass-and-mint scent of it and letting his eyes slip shut. It would take a long time for him to be able to talk about that, he knew, but they had an eternity together, as long as Jonghyun let them be. That was a nice thought, a nice twist to immortality that he’d never seen before - there was no rush to anything, no rush at all. 

* * *

Minho felt as if he’d forgotten that the cafe was advertised to be open for 24-hours a day, despite the way it was now open seven days a week - there was something about the way Jonghyun opened and closed it as his whim that made the proposal of an always-open store seem like more of a dream than anything. They’d settled into a hesitant but surprisingly easy routine. Taemin came by somewhat frequently, always in the late hours of the cafe being open, and Minho enjoyed his company after the long decades with no one to talk to. Sometimes, though, his teasing and needling came to be a bit much; he’d hidden in his quarters all evening, giving paper-thin excuses when Jonghyun asked if he would be coming out to watch his performance. It wasn’t as though he didn’t want to spend time with Taemin, but it was a strange and discomfiting change to his new life, one that only reminded him of what he’d left behind in the last one. It was with a halt to his steps that he walked into the cafe that morning shortly before sunrise, expecting a moment of silence and a change of scenery, only to find it crowded with the few commuters who had any reason to be in a coffee shop at that hour.

Minho stood at the edge of the cafe, just outside the door to the back areas, ignoring Jinki entirely when the vampire behind the counter greeted him - his attention was already diverted as he spotted a familiar face among the small crowds. 

Jonghyun himself was seated at the table pushed up against the window, tinted glass making it easy for him to sit before the rising sun peeking over the tops of the buildings surrounding them. The dim light of it drew bright streaks in his hair and painted his skin with a muted tone of gold. Perhaps the lack of solitude wouldn’t be all that bad, Minho decided with a low warmth in his gut, if he could spend it sitting with Jonghyun. He took two steps towards the table, and then stopped. 

It was becoming something of a habit for the world to spring surprises on him, though - Jonghyun wasn’t sitting alone. The person across from him faced away from Minho, so he couldn’t see their face, but based on the feeling of them alone, based on the way their hand curled around the fork they used to poke at the coffee cake sitting in the middle of the table, he knew who it had to be. The warmth curling inside Minho swept itself away almost as quickly as it had come, leaving him cold as he stared at the back of Kim Kibum’s head. Minho sucked in a breath through his nose, trying not to let himself look affected. He could quite easily just turn around and walk back into his own quarters, avoiding talking to Kibum entirely, and he almost considered it, swaying on his feet. 

But he was curious - and the way Jonghyun smiled and laughed with Kibum like they were old friends made him even more so. 

He approached slowly, still hesitant, but any effort to maintain a reasonable distance was thrown apart when Jonghyun turned to him, smiling wide and open, and said, “Good morning, Minho,” as if he’d been waiting for Minho to come within earshot the entire time. There was something in his eyes, as there always was. Minho didn’t look him in the eyes long enough to read it, instead slipping into the seat next to him and letting Jonghyun press them together, shoulder to thigh. It felt like another reassurance, and he leaned into it just the slightest bit. 

Kibum was looking at him, he knew, probably with that same look he always had - one that seemed as much pitying as it did understanding, one that seemed careful and careless at the same time. The kind of look that Minho could never figure out, the one that Taemin sometimes told him was reserved just for Minho. 

He glanced up, and Kibum’s face was only lined with the tired kind of worry that came with searching for someone who had left them behind. There was a relaxation to it, though the sharpness of his eyes remained. Minho didn’t know if it was a let-down or not. He looked the same as he always had, dark hair curling over his forehead and perfectly framing his perfect face. 

“Kibum,” he said, by way of a hello, keeping his voice even. 

Kibum nodded at him, once, and replied, “You look well. I guess Jonghyun’s been making you eat?” 

Minho frowned. Kibum sounded so casual, so easygoing about sitting here in a cafe on another continent with a stranger mediating between them, after so many decades had passed without them so much as seeing each other. It sat wrong with him, as did the way he said Jonghyun’s name - with a familiarity that seemed deeper than what Minho could claim towards their third party. His frown remained in place as he said bluntly, “What are you doing here?”

Kibum blinked, almost surprised to have been asked. “Just visiting,” he hedged. 

Jonghyun snorted, the first sound he’d made since Minho sat down. “Please, Kibum, don’t lie that obviously,” he said, “you’re too old for that now.”

“Oh yes,” Kibum drawled sarcastically, focusing on Jonghyun as if Jonghyun was giving him some sort of out, “definitely nothing like I was back in Belgium, not at all.” He broke off into a loud laugh, bright and fresh and exactly as it had been in the memories Minho turned over in his head sometimes. Jonghyun joined him, laughing helplessly and covering his mouth with one hand as if he couldn’t bear to show off his smile. 

Minho shifted, getting the distinct feeling that there was something he was missing, and then burst out, “Do you two know each other?”

“A little,” Kibum answered at the same time as Jonghyun replied, “I turned him.” And Minho nearly jumped out of his seat in an effort to turn and look at Jonghyun incredulously. His cheeks turned almost the same color as his cherry-dark hair, flushed with embarrassment at the look on Minho’s face - Minho could only wonder what he might look like, shock and something that felt like anger coursing through him. It wasn’t as if he was entitled to have known this beforehand, or as if Jonghyun had any idea the connections he had to Kibum, but. Minho couldn’t help the sense of betrayal welling up inside him, heating his blood; and anyways, wasn’t this going all too fast? He’d walked into the cafe expecting nothing more than a calm morning with another member of his coven, someone he admired and trusted, and now he was being told this, minutes into the conversation. 

He stammered through a reply, and came out with nothing other than awkward, confused gibberish. Jonghyun’s eyes softened, and he said, quietly, “Sorry. I didn’t think to tell you earlier.” 

“Didn’t think is,” Minho breathed shakily, “a bit of an understatement.” In a way, Jonghyun was responsible for Minho being turned, and that was something outside of any expectation he ever had. Jonghyun had always struck him as elusive, a secret-keeper, but Minho felt as if the calm, welcoming lake of his past was rife with danger now, a place where he might find something he didn’t want to. 

“Well, if we’re being honest,” Kibum cut in, and Minho had somehow almost forgotten he was sitting there, thrown for a loop as he was by Jonghyun’s admission. “I haven’t spoken to Jonghyun in hundreds of years. Who someone was turned by means little, after that amount of time.”

“So what are you really doing here,” Minho said, staring at Kibum again. There was something in the sight of him, something like the shape of home, and he didn’t like it. 

“Just as I said.” Kibum shrugged. “I came to visit you, after Taemin told me what a mess you’d made of yourself, but he didn’t mention the vampire taking you in was  _ this  _ Jonghyun. It’s a nice surprise, all things considered.”

“Nice that I’m teaching Minho all the things you should’ve taught him yourself?” Jonghyun quipped, kicking Kibum under the table - Minho could feel it where their thighs were still touching, and the motion grounded him. “What happened to you, Kibum, so irresponsible…”

“Maybe it’s not the best surprise anymore, jeez,” Kibum muttered. Minho had never seen him this way, so human and willing to submit to being an equal, but maybe it was just Jonghyun’s pull on him. “It was a strange time, for me, when I turned Minho. I’m learning, though.” He shot a pointed glance to Minho, and then flicked his eyes back to Jonghyun. “Learning to do better.” 

Minho kind of didn’t want to hear any of it, kind of felt sick of the conversation, and kind of wanted to storm away and stay away until Kibum decidedly left. He sighed and stood, and Jonghyun looked up at him from his seat with wide eyes. “I’m going,” he said to Jonghyun, and did just that. 

It was impulsive, and it was awkward, but Minho would have felt more than awkward in the stilted conversation he had thrust himself into, so he turned his back and made his way into the area behind the cafe. The heavy iron door was closed firmly behind him, and Minho leaned against the wall without another step, sighing. 

The brick at his back now was cold and firm, unmoving. Nothing like the thoughts that ran through his head - those were too fast for him to even process, full of feelings and emotions that were too tangled up between the past and the present. 

What could Kibum learning to do better possibly mean? Actually, what did it even have to do with him, why had Kibum looked at him like his opinion on it was the only one that mattered? Kibum had done what he had done - forcing Minho to partake in the hunt he hated, making him drink blood hot and sour from his own veins, things he never wanted to do… Minho shook his head, trying not to let himself get lost in the spectre of his memories. 

The door creaked open, minutes later, and Minho shut his eyes, not willing to see who could have come for him. They shuffled a little, footsteps tapping on the concrete floor, and then the door was shut once more. 

“Minho,” Jinki’s voice said, and Minho opened his eyes and turned his head to look, surprised. Jinki looked as concerned as he’d ever seen him, brows furrowed and lips pursed. “Minho, are you alright? Jonghyun looked worried, but…” 

Minho opened his mouth, ready to say what he always did: that yes, he was fine, but the lie felt wrong on his tongue. He closed his mouth, shook his head, and then murmured, “I guess I’m just overwhelmed by this.”

“You’re not the only one,” Jinki said. He reached out a hand, rubbed Minho’s shoulder with a touch that was decidedly comforting. “Let’s go up to the roof.” It was said with a tone just as firm as his hand on the junction where Minho’s shoulder met his neck, the type of tone that belied that Jinki was the real leader of the coven; but even if it wasn’t, Minho didn’t think he would have refused. 

The trip up the many flights of stairs was silent, with Jinki close on Minho’s heels. Every step was heavy and loud, echoing in the darkness, but Minho felt each one lighten the load on his shoulders. Still, it was tense in a way that most things between he and Jinki were, the minor amount of unfamiliarity between them widening into a gulf whenever they were alone. Minho wondered why Jinki was bothering to ask him, but led the way, thankful for even this. 

Outside, the sun was still rising, burning the dew off of the few tree-tops visible around their building. Jinki led them to a bench conveniently placed in the shadow of the roof access structure, and sat them both down, sinking into the seat with a sigh of his own. 

“Hard, isn’t it? Facing your creator,” he murmured, and Minho could no longer relax against the cold wood of the bench, sitting upright. Jinki peered at him from the corner of his eye. “Don’t ask how I figured it out, it was obvious when you walked in. Jonghyun used to get that way, too.” 

Minho blinked, feeling thrown for yet another loop. The breeze blew into his face, refreshing and cold. “Jonghyun did? Really?” He wondered what Jinki could have done to make Jonghyun feel such a way towards him, and wondered how in the world they got to where they were now - living together, running a business together, hooking up on a semi-regular basis that Minho could not ignore no matter how hard he tried. 

“Doesn’t everyone,” Jinki mused, kicking one leg out into the floor repeatedly with a steady scuffing noise. “I’m sure I would have. We all change over time, though.” 

“Did you just bring me up here to pitch Kibum’s reformed morality to me,” Minho sighed, crossing his arms. “As if you even know him.” 

Jinki snorted, and his voice tinged with an old kind of bitterness when he said, “I didn’t. Jonghyun didn’t give me a chance for that, which was too bad, but I understand it. Although it made little difference to who he became.” 

The trees swayed in the wind, little branches ending in big leaves that fluttered off at the slightest motion. Minho looked down at the concrete of the roof, and the way it was already stained with the pigment of leaves that had rotted and vanished. Maybe that was just what being immortal and being human were about. “Do people - do  _ vampires  _ really ever change?”

“I think so,” Jinki offered. “I’ve changed. I’m sure you have, too.” Minho didn’t know about that. It felt like he was still the same person he had been the moment he said  _ yes  _ against Kibum’s lips, scared to face an eternity alone, and sealed himself to endure just that as his fate. 

“What were you like before?” Minho wondered. He was nearly unable to picture Jinki as anything other than he was: as deep and vast as he was flat and clear, quirky and impenetrable and harmless to a point, strength tempered into something like protection. 

Jinki didn’t answer for a long time, and they sat and watched the birds flit from tree to tree, racing each other in endless dances. “I was not as… well-behaved as I am now,” he finally admitted, head turned up towards the sky, which had turned white with how overcast it had become since they walked outside. “Too greedy, too mindless. I thought Jonghyun would better me, and he did. But that took a long time.” 

“And you hurt him, first?” Minho concluded, shifting slightly, uncomfortably. 

“That’s human nature,” Jinki sighed, “even for non-humans. Hurting people who are close to us. Intentionally, unintentionally… But that’s Jonghyun’s story to tell, anyhow. I don’t believe that I should be the one to lecture you on this type of thing.” 

Minho hummed, and listened to the sounds of the city as it began to settle into itself for another day, and listened to the sounds of Jinki breathing and thinking loud enough for both of them to hear. It was nice, being out in the day, in a way that couldn’t hurt him. He wondered if Jinki did this often, reflecting and staring at the same few trees and windows as he did so. It seemed peaceful. 

He stood and made to walk back inside, nodding again at Jinki as he left. Jinki looked at him like he knew exactly what he was thinking, wry and amused, even though Minho himself couldn’t even make sense of his thoughts. 

* * *

Kibum had summarily disappeared, and Minho wondered with a slight amount of concern if Taemin would as well - after all, Taemin had always followed Kibum around with a look of awe in his eyes, as much as he was loathe to admit it, preferring to torment the vampire he looked up to the most. His worries were put to rest, though, when he was sitting outside the cafe one night, simply watching the street before him, thinking on everything and anything in his solitude. Jonghyun had ushered him out after his set ended, insisting that he would handle any cafe orders by himself, claiming that Minho looked like he needed some fresh air. The fresh air was blown into his face by the whirlwind of motion that were Jinki and Taemin, giggling into each other as they stumbled and twirled past him to enter the cafe as soon as he stepped out. And Minho thought, good for them, but what about him? What about the way that Jonghyun had grown back into an awkward sense of distance, their positions reversed as Jonghyun worked himself up into telling Minho whatever it was he had to tell him. 

Minho crossed his arms, watched the gaggles of well-dressed pedestrians making their way to and from clubs, mingling with the fancier, older ones that were spilling out of the symphony hall across the street. They all dripped with glitter and glamour, and Minho felt blessed for the lack of distinction his own all-black outfit gave him - it was perfect for simply watching. He tried not to think of the way that he could easily point out which passersby would have the most delicious blood, tried not to remember that it had been an unusually long amount of time since Jonghyun asked him into his quarters to share a glass, putting aside that ‘an unusually long amount of time’ was about a week and a half. 

But pushing those thoughts to the back of his head only brought forth ones he had wanted to avoid even longer: the presence of an unopened letter he’d found slipped beneath the door to his private quarters, with his name written on it in Kibum’s clean script. It had been shoved in a drawer, covered with piles of Minho’s sweaters, but the sheer knowledge that it existed burned through him whenever he let it. 

Minho decided he wouldn’t open it, though. That would be his idea of growth: leaving it behind. Every minute of the life he had as the second member of Kibum’s coven, and even the way that time intersected with his present status. Kibum was growing, too; then let him, Minho decided. And maybe one day, Kibum would walk into the cafe again, and Minho would face him, both of them versions of themselves that could see eye to eye. After that, maybe he would open that letter, its pages gone delicate and translucent with time, and maybe he would feel nothing at all about it then.

Until then, Jonghyun was his present focus. Minho still liked him, still thought he might even love him, at this point, even with all his tendencies for over-romanticizing secrets and trying to protect Minho by throwing Minho’s problems in his face inadvertently. 

He’d been sitting out here for over an hour, feeling the fall air nip at the tips of his ears, and he decided that he had had enough of that. He turned, avoiding the attention of the last few bar crawlers who were whining to each other as they squeezed into a nondescript taxi, and ducked back into the cafe. 

Jonghyun was standing behind the counter, still, humming a disjointed tune to himself as he wiped down the various glasses for serving various types of drinks. The sleeves of his blue sweater were pushed up, revealing the veins that laced their way up his lower arms, and Minho was momentarily distracted by the already-fading memory of how it felt to run his grasp up those arms, holding Jonghyun down as much as he had held him close. It hadn’t been the time, since Kibum came, and with the removal of their evening drinks went the lack of physical contact between them, sexual or otherwise.

Minho missed it, so he squeezed into the small space where Jonghyun was standing, simply taking the glass he’d just cleaned and set down and turning to place it back where it belonged. If Jonghyun minded, he didn’t show it at all, moving on to the next and continuing to hum. There were a few stray words sprinkled into it, the same few over and over, as if Jonghyun was committing them to memory. 

“What are you singing?” He asked, to break the ice between them. 

Jonghyun’s shoulders jolted a bit, and he ducked his head down a little bit. Minho looked at him from the corner of his eye, and Jonghyun seemed almost shy, almost self-conscious of it. “Something I’m not finished composing,” he admitted. 

“I liked it,” Minho said, low and quiet. He wouldn’t say it now, but he liked all of Jonghyun’s songs, the romantic ones and the emotional ones, the light-hearted ones and the ones that seemed to have been made for some purpose that Minho couldn’t grasp. 

It was strange to think Kibum might know Jonghyun as well as he did, or even better, and might have understood the subtext between every line of Jonghyun’s songs, the thoughts he held that still were beyond Minho’s reach. But. That had been a different Jonghyun, and a different Kibum. The thought took hold of him, and without considering much of it, he asked, “What was Kibum like, when he was first turned?” 

Jonghyun huffed out a surprised breath, something near a laugh. “He was so bold,” he said immediately, as if the memories were already on the surface of his thoughts, “Always wanted to be the one with the last word. And a little cruel, too, but only about things he never meant.” 

Minho let some kind of expression uncurl over his face; he didn’t know what kind of expression it was, or what he felt, but it was somehow nice to know that Jonghyun knew how Kibum was. That he wasn’t just seeing Kibum’s good sides, old remembrances gone rosy with time. 

“He had something of an interesting duplicity to him, some kind of internal contradiction about his goals,” Jonghyun mused. “As if he couldn’t stand how I was towards him, but he wanted to be the same way towards me.” 

“That sounds like him,” Minho murmured. It dawned on him, then, that Kibum had been the same about him. And he felt like, somehow, that put everything into a different lens. “Maybe he’s just the type that needs space to make any changes to himself.”

“After you were gone, he left pretty fast. I think he just wanted to prove that he wasn’t the same person he was, now that he could change at all,” Jonghyun concluded. “What a lone wolf, he is, not staying any longer than that.”

Minho wanted to laugh at the idea that Kibum would be anything of a lone wolf type, but he supposed it was true, at least for a while. “He’ll be back, eventually,” he said, and tried not to make the words sound as apprehensive as they felt in his mind. 

Jonghyun hummed noncommittally, setting his rag down and facing Minho. Minho looked back at him, with the shy hunch of his shoulders and the stronger set of his jaw, and wondered how he might even remain anything close to mad at Jonghyun. It seemed a bit hypocritical, now, but he knew it was only natural for his heart to act as it wanted. He was always just along for the ride. 

“I’m sorry for not being more upfront with you about this part of my past,” Jonghyun said. “I don’t have anything else to hide, and there was nothing about it I even wanted to hide in the first place. But somehow, I still did, without realizing it.”

“It’s not like you would have known,” Minho shrugged. “I hid it from you as much as you did from me.” 

“Still,” Jonghyun sighed, fidgeting for a moment before he asked, “Would you like to come up for a drink? It’s been a while, and I don’t want the lack to impact your health again. Besides… it will make this conversation a lot easier, won’t it?” 

“There’s not much more to say about it, is there?” Minho pondered, but still backed himself into the edge of the bar for Jonghyun to pass him by and lead the way towards the back. He didn’t miss the way Jonghyun’s hand slipped along the counter, fingers brushing against Minho’s hip as he went. “We both knew Kibum, and we both feel awkwardly about him. Maybe he’ll come back to see one of us, or maybe something will remind us of him, and we’ll talk to him again. Until then, that’s all there is.”

“Maybe it was just an excuse to get you in my room, Minho,” Jonghyun smirked at him from over the counter. “You don’t need to point that part of it out.” Minho laughed, surprised, and shook his head, letting Jonghyun open the door for him to go through first. And it wasn’t a conclusion, wasn’t even so much as an interlude, but Minho felt as if it was the first step to something better for them both. He smiled at Jonghyun as he passed through the door frame, into what was still their coven and their home, and Jonghyun smiled back. 

* * *

They were in the park, this time, Jonghyun determinedly flipping the sign of the cafe to  _ closed  _ only after Minho had flipped it to  _ open  _ and dragging him outside as soon as the sun set. “I would like to see the fall leaves with you, if you don’t mind,” he proposed with a smile when Minho’s steps faltered behind him.

Minho couldn’t help but feel as if there was some ulterior motive to it, but he followed Jonghyun willingly enough, Jonghyun’s fingers firm around his wrist as he led them through the throngs of people out on that chilly fall evening. There was something so human about the mood, so many heartbeats thrumming against his own as people rushed to wherever they went, eager to use their limited time wisely; what was more human than even that was how Jonghyun acted the same way, despite his own immortality. 

The fall leaves of the trees at the local park were, in fact, quite beautiful, and Minho reclined on the bench, long legs stretched out far in front of him. He heard Jonghyun huff at it, his own shorter legs crossed with a knee pressing into Minho’s thigh, but he didn’t acknowledge it besides letting a smirk unfurl across his face. 

“It’s nice out,” he said, simply, after a few minutes of silence. The moon was out, too, still low enough that it touched against the lowest of the tall buildings that arced up around them. Its golden eye, the same color as the leaves fluttering to the ground around them, peeked out at him. It was sly and secret, and he smiled a little. There was no more need for him to compare it to Jonghyun, because Jonghyun no longer hid, no longer found himself entertained by a game of cat-and-mouse when he knew he could have everything of Minho. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Jonghyun replied, head tilting to watch a crowd of couples spill out of a nearby restaurant, clinging to each other and laughing at some joke they’d all forget within minutes. The sound of it was boisterous and infectious, echoing throughout the park, and Minho’s smirk turned into a smile. After the sound finished ringing out, Jonghyun continued, as if to fill the sudden silence, “I wanted to ask you something tonight. Something important.”

Minho breathed out a laugh, fond and light. “You’re always asking me things. What about I ask you something, instead?” 

He’d meant it to be teasing, but Jonghyun’s face was considering as he looked back at Minho, as if Minho had proposed something that meant a lot to him. Minho raised his eyebrows, curious at it. 

“Perhaps you should,” Jonghyun mused, sighing. “I’m still too mysterious, aren’t I? So interested in you that I forget to reveal as much of myself as I make you reveal to me.”

“I don’t mind that all the time,” Minho said, thinking of how every tidbit of information he found out about Jonghyun still just made him more interested in the other. There was so much he wanted to know about Jonghyun, and so many memories he wanted to make doing it. 

“Well, I do,” Jonghyun huffed. “Maybe you should ask me something, instead. Right now.” He poked along Minho’s bicep, walking a path with his fingers as he spoke until he was jabbing Minho in the neck with his nail, scratching at where a still-healing bite mark was. It made Minho’s ears red with the familiarity of the action, and even redder when he felt his blood travel south at the sensation. 

Swatting Jonghyun’s hand away gently, he mused, “Do you think you could put in a good word with Jinki about me? About the way we are with each other?” The way that they’d never quite regained the ease that they’d had before Minho had walked in on the two of them bothered him, especially as the time he spent with Jonghyun’s coven started to spin longer and longer. A grudge would do no good in the lasting harmony of any coven. 

Jonghyun squacked. “That has nothing to do with me, does it! And besides,” he said more softly, leaning his head against Minho’s shoulders. “I don’t need to. You two are already fine. He already knows everything, has heard it all.” 

“What kind of ridiculous, romantic things are you telling Jinki about me behind my back?” Minho was concerned, now, about his reputation instead of anything else. “That doesn’t count, by the way, as your question.” 

“Ah, I’m already tired of this game, answering twenty questions and all that,” Jonghyun whined, grabbing Minho’s hand in his and moving it over onto his lap. Minho was grateful for the relative emptiness of the park, the way that no one was watching them and they would have to watch no one. It made moments like this, where he could feel Jonghyun slip each one of his fingers in between Minho’s, all the more intimate. “You have a long time to ask yours, so think harder about what it’s going to be. Let me ask you mine.” 

“Ask away, then,” Minho replied easily, tipping his head back again to watch the way the leaves, lit by the streetlights and still-gleaming lights of the late-night office workers above, turned shades of copper. That, too, somehow reminded him of Jonghyun; the way his whole heart seemed vaguely gold. 

“Will you let me interview you?” Jonghyun asked, voice suddenly sheepish. Minho glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but the angle he sat at only allowed him to see the back of Jonghyun’s head, where the cherry of his hair was bleeding into black at the roots. “I want to write about you, for that biography I mentioned.”

Minho thought about teasing him for it, saying things about how it must just be an excuse to ask him questions forever, but he could tell from the way Jonghyun messed with his fingers as he held onto them that he was being serious. And he didn’t want to screw this up, not now, not when he was closer to having a love he’d always wanted as he’d ever been in his whole immortality. He tightened his grasp around Jonghyun’s hand, replied, “Anything you want, Jonghyun, for as long as you want.” 

The smile Jonghyun gave him, full of teeth and joy, as he turned his head to cover Minho’s lips with his, made such a promise worth it. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have recently made a tumblr account [here](https://glitterhyuns.tumblr.com/) where I hope to start talking about my fanfic, posting shorter or prompted pieces, etc. I have a lot of ideas that I haven't written, even some related to this story, so please feel free to ask me anything about this fic or my other ones if you want something more out of it. :)


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